Steven Singer reviews the latest Phi Delta Kappa poll of public opinion about public schools and finds that public support is at an all-time high, with one exception: Though people admire and respect teachers, they don’t want their children to grow up to be a teacher. They understand that teachers are underpaid and undervalued.
He writes:
According to the 50th annual PDK Poll of attitudes about public schools, Americans trust and support teachers, but don’t want their own children to join a profession they see as underpaid and undervalued.
In almost every other way, they support public schools and the educators who work there.
When it comes to increasing school funding, increasing teacher salary, allowing teachers to strike, and an abundance of other issues, the poll found a majority of people unequivocally in favor of endeavors meant to bolster learning.
In fact, support for education and educators has never been so high in half a century.
“Two-thirds of Americans say teachers are underpaid, and an overwhelming 78% of public school parents say they would support teachers in their community if they went on strike for more pay,” according to PDK’s Website.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Polls nor evidence matter to leaders in politics, in universities, and in business.
The PUBLIC OSU invited as its graduation speaker this year, the head of the school- privatizing Gates Foundation. OSU is the location of the Sept. 10, Bill Gates-sponsored visit of Hoover’s Hanushek and a Gates Impatient Optimist, Jonathan Friedman. The co-hosts for the meeting are mayors from Findlay and Dayton. The scheduling is in spite of Rand’s finding this year that “A $1 bil. Gates-backed education initiative failed to help students… ” (Business Insider) Gates and Hastings continue to buy influence to privatize education and co-incidentally Gates is an investor in the largest for-profit seller of schools-in-a-box (projected 20% return) and Hastings is co-partnered in a charter chain.
Why doesn’t PUBLIC OSU invite a private prison CEO to speak and have it hosted by Ohio mayors? One could argue less outrage at the invitation because prisoners have been convicted and are adults. In contrast, the exploited kids of labor are innocent victims of the richest 0.1%. If the wealthy, who have been stunted as human beings by privilege, are expected to do better, the expectation is a symptom of insanity.
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Yuck. Poor graduates. They’re going to be subjected to a barrage of “disruption” slogans.
Let’s predict the reformy lines- my bet is “the jobs of the future haven’t been invented yet”.
This passes for profound wisdom in ed reform circles.
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There’s no wisdom in the deform circles, only greed.
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Our nation’s public schools suffer from an “image deficit” due to the negative campaign of “Nation at Risk” and the thirty-five years so since the wealthy decided we should privatize our public schools. Our schools are portrayed as “factories of failure” and “dead ends.” There has been a steady stream of negative propaganda against public schools and teachers. This has been a deliberate top down attempt to undermine confidence in public education to make it vulnerable to takeover. There has also been a huge disconnect between the lies distributed by the media and the experience of many public school teachers, parents and students that know that their public school is doing a fine job educating young people that continue to learn, grow and make it in the real world.
Today many more members of the public have caught on that the main objective of all the negative campaign was not to improve public schools, but to privatize them. Most parents and communities are becoming more mobilized in order to reject the forces of privatization.
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Who cares what the public thinks.
Arne Duncan thinks public schools suck and are based on lies.
And he, of all people!e should know about sucky things basedon lies, given his own life.
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I disagree. The public schools are a public enterprise. They are paid for by the public, and the employees are public employees.
The education establishment MUST care a great deal about what the public thinks.
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Of course.
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That “education establishment” most certainly does care. Have you been involved in your district? Have you spoken with the various workers, not just the higher ups? You see, having been intimately involved not only in the districts in which I worked but also my own children’s district and schools, I can tell you first hand that everyone, every single person that I dealt with cared deeply about providing the best education for the students.
Now, was the execution of providing that education always what I believed it should be? For the most part, yes, until all of the federal mandates beginning with NCLB were thrust upon the schools and the adminimals didn’t stand up and refuse that bullshit and implemented the many ongoing malpractices we see now. They are just self-deluded now to believing that they aren’t doing wrong.
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I would call the public schools a public service. “Enterprise” implies that the primary role is an economic one. And don’t start talking about human capital. I abhor this attempt to turn people into dollar signs. The role of schools is so much bigger than the production of worker bees.
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Well, that poll is invalid because the US Department of Education and the rest of the ed reform echo chamber tell us every day that Americans loathe public schools and want to replace them all with private contractors.
Betsy DeVos makes a special point of GOING to public schools and telling the students how much public schools suck, which I really appreciate as a parent. Happy to pay for those junkets.
That these public employees believe that this is somehow helpful, to tell public school students that they are trapped in a “factory model” surrounded by greedy self-interested teachers and they should insist on “escaping” is a measure of how completely irrelevant and useless they are to the 85% of families who attend the public schools they seek to eradicate.
And you’re all paying them for this.
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From the end of the article:
“As usual, policymakers are trying to herd Americans to their point of view instead of listening to their constituencies.
And that seems to be the big take away from this year’s poll.
Americans want and support public education.”
Vote in November with that thought in mind.
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“I herd you” — Joe Politician
Pols have never heard us
Only really herd us
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And hurt us
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ooh, nice one
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It sounds like I’m exaggerating but if you read ed reformers you’ll see I’m not.
Here’s the US Department of Education describing public schools:
“Yet there’s one glaring exception: the classroom.
There hasn’t been much change in education between my own experience in grade school and that of kids today.
Why? Because our education system reflects the Industrial age in which it was created.
Tell me if this sounds familiar. Students lined up in rows. A teacher in front of a board. Sit down; don’t talk; eyes up front. Wait for the bell. Walk to the next class. And…repeat. The set-up was to train students for the assembly line then, and we’re still training them for the assembly line now.
But that’s not reflective of a 21st century economy!”
I know this is unimaginable to the private school graduates who run the country, but my kid actually LIKES school.
Maybe they could make an effort not to spread their ideological opposition to public schools to actual public school students? He does not, in fact, believe that he is trapped in a 19th century factory, probably because he isn’t. I have no idea why I’m paying thousands of public employees to tell him he is.
Keep your anti-public school marketing campaign in DC. I don’t want it around my kid.
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The title of my post at the pd current affairs was.”Hey 47-47 McCaskill…read this, as a MO citizen”…….because Missourians love to jump and holler about how the federal government has nothing to do with education……Claire was on right wing KMOX radio today bragging about how much she supports more money for border guards….and she cautioned us that it is not really appropriate to be talking about the 25th amendment or impeachment………..I will still vote for her, but I anticipate she is going to lose to a republican nothing burger…..and I do not rule out Cruz getting beat in Texas by O’Rourke. Missouri will be meandering further to the right, while the rest of the nation will……not be doing so. Claire McCaskill is a lousy excuse for a senator, and a lousy leader for the democrat party.
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I’m surprised Poet didn’t do this before me. SomeDAM must not like country music like I do.
Teachers ain’t easy to hire and they’re harder to hold
They’d rather have smaller classes than diamonds or gold
Coffee stained dress shirts and old faded Levis
And each night begins a new day
If you don’t understand her, an’ you don’t want taxes
She’ll prob’ly just ride away
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be teachers
Don’t let ’em read books or auto shop them old trucks
Let ’em be doctors and lawyers and such
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be teachers
‘Cos they’ll never stay home and they’re never alone
But billionaires don’t know ’bout love.
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