Poll: Most Americans oppose key tenets of modern school reform
What do Americans think of key aspects of modern school reform? Not much, according to the findings of a respected annual poll.
Not only do most Americans think kids are subjected to too many standardized tests, but a majority reject holding teachers, students and schools accountable based in part on test scores, the survey found. And there’s this: The No. 1 problem Americans said their local schools are facing isn’t bad teachers or unions but insufficient funding, a finding that has remained consistent for the past 10 years.
The findings of the 47th annual PDK-Gallup poll, the longest continuously running survey of American attitudes toward public education, were released Sunday. PDK International is a global association of education professionals and is headed by Joshua Starr, a former superintendent of the Montgomery County Public School District. PDK has conducted this poll with Gallup every year since 1969. Some of the survey was conducted by phone, and some, for the first time, by Web. Results from both are said be nationally representative of Americans as a whole and subgroups, such as public school parents. The poll is being published by PDK’s Kappan magazine.
The 2015 poll (with this as its main headline: “Testing Doesn’t Measure Up for Americans”) finds that a majority of Americans, as well as a majority of American public school parents, object to some of the key tenets of modern school reform. For example, 64 percent say there is too much emphasis on standardized testing (7 percent say there isn’t enough).
And most Americans have an issue with evaluating teachers with student Poll: Most Americans oppose key tenets of modern school reform - The Washington Post: