Analyzing the new PDK/Gallup poll on how Americans view public education
This was written by education historian Diane Ravitch, a research professor at New York University and author of the bestselling “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.” This first appeared on her blog.
By Diane Ravitch
The annual Phi Delta Kappa-Gallup poll on education was just released and the sponsors characterize public opinion as split, which is true for many issues.
We must see this poll in the context of an unprecedented, well-funded campaign to demonize public schools and their teachers over at least the past two years, and by some reckoning, even longer.
The media has parroted endlessly the assertion that our public schools are failures, they are (as Bill Gates memorably said to the nation’s
Poll: Americans’ views on public education
A major annual poll on how Americans view public education shows divisions on vouchers, charter schools, evaluating teachers by standardized test scores of students and whether President Obama or Mitt Romney would be better for public education. Yet Americans largely agree that they trust public school teachers but want them prepared more rigorously.
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