UT/TT Poll: Partisan Harmony, Dissonance on Education
Enlargephoto by: Todd Wiseman
Increasing funding for public schools and reducing the number of standardized tests students must take top the list of most effective changes Texas could make in public education, according to the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.
Creating a school voucher program and increasing teacher pay tied for third when the respondents were asked to select one change they would make to public education.
Some of the numbers point to partisan differences among Texas registered voters, while others win high marks from both conservatives and liberals.
“One of the things that you see here is that, for all the fiscal conservatism in the state and the way that that inflected the public education system in 2011, liking your teachers and wanting to help them is a bipartisan position,” said Jim Henson, who runs the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin and co-directs the UT/TT Poll.
Henson said voters who said they support Democrat Wendy Davis in the governor’s race favor increasing teacher pay by a 90 percent to 7 percent margin. Voters who support Republican Greg Abbott in that race favor that proposal 62 percent to 34 percent. Broken