A new AP poll out today spends some time asking respondents about the state of public schools. The approximately 1,700 adults gave their opinions about how well schools prepare kids for college, how safe schools are, etc. etc. The Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics blog has an interesting take on the relationship between education and economic productivity (which lends itself to exploring how Americans view their kids schools vs. everyone else's), but other results deserve some attention.
According to the poll, both the general population and parents think students should spend more time studying math (38% and 40%, respectively) and English (21% and 21%, respectively). The next most popular subject? History and government, says the general population (10% apiece), and "other" (10%) say the parents. Sure it makes sense that they'd want more time devoted to math and English, the bread and butter of our standardized testing system, but yikes. These results don't exactly give much hope to the push to keep the liberal arts in the curriculum. And one has to wonder what exactly these "other" subjects are, considering the survey lists choices in just about every major subject.
Another disturbing result: 70% of the general population and 69% of parents think classroom work and homework are the best way to measure student achievement (as opposed to test scores). Fair enough; it's easy to see how mom and dad can understand Johnny's A on a test in a vacuum, but there's no telling how his A measures up to his peers domestically and abroad. These same respondents are worried about international competitiveness (over 90% of both groups say U.S. schools are "just keeping up with" or "falling behind" the rest of the world). Yet while these parents are looking down their noses at standardized tests, they'd like to see more time spent on math and English--and more than likely that's not because they want Johnny to keep up those straight A's.
Eight-hundred and thirty-three general population adults and 854 parents of school-aged children took this Gates-funded survey. They may be only a small slice of America, but the contradictions presented in their responses are certainly worth a thoughtful look.
