Most of us don’t have the time to dig down into polls and figure out the nuances of wording and responses. Fortunately for us, Mercedes Schneider has done it for us.
She here compares the AP-NORC poll which concluded that most parents like standardized testing to the PDK/Gallup poll, which found that only 22% of parents thought that standardized testing improved their school.
How did the two polls reach such different conclusions? Read Mercedes and find out.
By the way, Mercedes pronounces her name with the accent on the first syllable and a soft “e” in the second syllable, not like the car, which sounds like an “a” in the second syllable. Apparently, her renown in Louisiana has spread through her blog, and she is known by that unusual first name, like Cher and Madonna.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“And what else “speaks” is the timing of the AP press release for its debut the weekend before release of the annual PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools.”
I wondered about this myself. The timing seemed pre-emptive, as in a political campaign.
One of the difficulties that I see for public school supporters is that “reform” is intensely politically managed. Reform” is a combination of product marketing and a political campaign.
While I understand the reluctance of teachers or policy people on the public school advocacy side to engage on that level, we’re at a real disadvantage if we don’t, because reform is run by business people and politicians – business people know marketing and politicians know campaigning (which is just another form of marketing).
I think public school advocates have to face this fact, and decide how to handle it. I’m watching this from the sidelines and wondering how teachers can poll so well with the public but at the same time are regularly denigrated and smeared in media and by politicians. It’s baffling because so few people trust media and politicians, yet people trust teachers. So how are politicians getting away with this? They’re getting away with it because reform is as much about messaging and campaigning as it is about education.
For many politicians, the blaming of teachers takes the public’s attention off of difficult issues the politicians can not or will not address – good jobs, decent health care, safe communities.
AND it diverts attention away from the current debate about raising the minimum wage. Ironic since a livable wage is THE most important component of mediating poverty. That should actually be bolstered by education data, but politicians and corporate “reformers” have hijacked that discussion and replaced it with the false contention that only schools are needed to mediate poverty.
In their own terms, their poverty portfolio is limited to just one investment. In human terms, they put all eggs in the education basket and then scapegoat teachers for not being able to eradicate poverty all by themselves.
Right, I agree, that makes sense to me, but how do we rebut what is (essentially) a political campaign to discredit public schools and teachers?
Because the resiliency of the public trust should be encouraging to you. Reformers and media have been attacking public schools for a long, long time (at least a decade) and yet the pubic trusts the teachers they know. That’s good on its own terms, but it’s also a political asset, political “capital”, if you will. You have that in the bank. To put it in political terms, your “approval rating” is much higher than any of the reform politicians, including Arne Duncan’s boss.
I got interested in this because I watched what was a coordinated campaign to attack public employees (including teachers) in Ohio in 2009-10. The public employees responded with a political campaign of their own, and they won. They won by 30 points. This is a conservative county and the anti-public employee campaign got walloped here.
Agreed except that reform is ALL about messaging and campaigning and NOTHING about education.
And of course this makes this whole thing even more bizarre.
Many thanks to Mercedes for another enlightening post. You make the world of data very readable and also useful for our campaign for the public sector.
Thank you, Ira. Readability is important– reformers count on the “snow job” they are able to do when the public is afraid seeming-indecipherable charts and numbers.
Mercedes, How do you pronounce the third syllable in your name? Does that have a long e and does it have a second accent –or is it kind of swallowed at the end? (Is this a Southern pronunciation?)
Excellent comparison and analysis, Mercedes!