EdNext is a pro-choice, pro-privatization journal of education research. It is not neutral. It is funded largely by the ultra-conservative Hoover Institution. It advocates for charters and vouchers and against public schools and unions.
EdNext conducts an annual poll.
Here, Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, analyzes the good news in the new EdNext poll:
The Education Next polls typically read like push polls, with questions carefully worded to elicit an anti-public school, pro-privatization agenda. Nevertheless, there is some good news tucked away for friends of public education in their 2018 results.
The teacher walkouts in six states raised sympathy, not antipathy, for teachers most notably in the states where the walkouts occurred. According to Ed Next’s recent poll, 63% of respondents in the walk-out states support increasing teacher pay and there has been a 7 point increase in support for increased funding for public schools overall.
According to Ed Next polling, in 2014 support for charter schools was at its highest – – 54%. During the past four years, however, that support has dropped. In 2017, 39% percent of those polled supported charter schools with a small uptick this year to 44%. The small rebound for approval of charters has come nearly exclusively from self-identified Republicans. Among Democrats support has remained low with only 31% supporting charters in 2017, and 35% supporting them in 2018. Support for charters among teachers has dramatically declined from 44% in 2014, to only 30% four years later.
The Education Next poll records support for vouchers at the same 44%. However, in 2017 the PDK poll found support for vouchers to be only 39%–a figure that drops to 34% when vouchers for private schools are included. (Apparently about 5% of respondents think that vouchers are used in public schools only.) To understand the difference one only needs only to look how Education Next asks its question:
A proposal has been made that would give all families with children in public schools a voucher allowing them to enroll their children in private schools instead, with government helping to pay the tuition. Would you support or oppose this proposal?
In the question, vouchers are proposed as theoretical. In reality, 15 states plus the District of Columbia have at least one direct voucher program. Second rather than using the word taxpayerto describe who pays for the voucher, Ed Next uses government—cleverly shifting the burden of payment away from those responding to the question. And third, the question limits vouchers to families that are in public schools, despite the fact that nearly all voucher laws have expanded so that attending a public school is no longer a requirement.
What do we learn from the Ed Next poll? Even in a poll with questions biased in favor of school choice, there is still more support for true public education than not. It is now our job to help the public understand the impact of vouchers and charters on their community public schools and their taxes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s always fascinating to read the ups and downs of this annual poll. According to this summary of it, this year’s issues include teacher pay, charters, vouchers, funding, etc.
As a staunch supporter of public schools, I see a huge missing piece: Special education. It involves about 13-14% of our students (roughly speaking, far more than twice those who attend charters or use vouchers) and the cost for their education is anywhere between 21 and 40% of school budgets. Yet, it is not even on the front burner here.
I’ve been working to reform special education to get it to work well for ALL students–whether disabled or not– and ALL teachers in our public schools. Special education policies –including mainstreaming, inclusion, accommodations, and many others–affect ALL schools.
As I see it, we can’t really understand public policy or move the needle on improving education for ALL students without raising questions about special education. As you can see in my book, Special Education 2.0, it’s more than time to break taboos and create public education that works for ALL students.
It’s time for questions about all of this. Wait ’til next year?!
An interesting article about a principal who had a laundromat installed in his school.
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/21/health/iyw-school-laundry-room-trnd/
Little things most of us don’t think about.
I think it is also important to tell people that public education is a perfect example of democracy in action that is responsive to the communities they serve. Also, strong public schools are a public asset that often enhance property values. Sending tax dollars to a corporation is a senseless disinvestment in one’s own community. Home ownership is the biggest investment most middle class people make. Why would anyone logically opt to devalue it?
The so called choice they are marketing is a fake one anyway. Most public schools already offer several options for diverse students, far more than most small charters operated by amateurs. Some public schools currently subcontract unique programs to private vendors. The difference is that the community school district has control over where the dollars go, not the state or corporations.
I have found that students who have experienced diversity and are not always catered to become more developed adults and can actually cope with life better. Dump is an example (to the MAX) of what I mean. Thus, TWO big positives for public schools. WE ALL HAVE to find a way to live together in harmony.
Maybe that is what is wrong with this country? TOO MUCH “me, me, me.”
And now with that screen, our young are more isolated and live in SILOS.
Wow, Good to see.
I have a hunch that many moderate Republicans have left or are leaving the GOP and they are being replaced by new voters that joined the party to vote for and support Trump.
I think those former moderate Republicans are becoming independent voters or joining the Democratic Party.
If that is a correct hunch, then registered Republicans might be about the same as the numbers were before the election but not the same people. That also might mean that the average education level attained among registered Republicans is dropping like a dumb bomb from a B52 falling toward the earth.
Push polls need to be exposed as a means of generating really biased news, properly called fake news. Experts in messaging use polls to frame PR for their campaigns. Good for Carol in looking at the Education Next poll as offering unintended good news (relatively speaking) than they probably intended.
And as most readers probably realize, a Koch-funded study found that there is wide public support for Medicare for All and the costs for such a program are lower than what we are paying now for our current convoluted system… The question is, when will the opposition party to the GOP seize on these findings and advocate FOR public schools and FOR health care for all?