Steve Hinnefeld reports on a recent Gallup Poll that shows high patent satisfaction with public schools. Parents are not seeking “choice,” yet the legislature keeps enhancing legislation to create more school choice.
He reports:
- Indiana parents are happy with their children’s schools. A remarkable 88% said they were satisfied with the quality of their child’s school. Figures were even higher for some groups: 90% for parents of elementary children and 96% in rural areas and small towns.
- Parents know what schools are teaching and support it: 81% say they know what their children are learning in school, and 78% say they agree with it.
- Those who disagree with what schools are teaching are a tiny minority of parents. Only 7% don’t approve of what the schools teach, and two-thirds of those admit they don’t know what that is. In other words, “I don’t know what they’re teaching but, whatever it is, I don’t like it.”
Yet a tiny and uninformed minority – much of it unconnected to schools — seems to have the ear of Republicans, who keep pushing legislation to restrict what schools can teach about race, gender, sexuality and other made-up controversies. They’ve also promoted “curriculum transparency” bills, apparently in the idea that schools are keeping parents in the dark.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Parents of disabled students prefer public schools because vouchers force parents to waive their rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Act and charters have been practicing “exclusive enrollment” for years (what we’ve called “counseling out” of disabled, homeless, English as a second language and those “less desirable” students that lower test scores).
I hope you’ve seen today’s New York Times front page article “Students With Disabilities Are Secretly Removed From School” regarding a Roseburg, OR high school’s practice with a student that had started in elementary school. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/us/students-disabilities-informal-removal.html
The article could’ve been printed 20 years ago as there has been little change. The lack of fully funding IDEA (getting away with the phrasing “up to 40%” of costs for supports) since its passage is the real story. We’re apparently at 15% this year. Where is the funding for supporting these children and their teachers?
It amazes me whenever I get a tweet from someone who supports school choice because her alleged child has disabilities and can’t get appropriate instruction. Don’t parents understand that they give up their IDEA rights when they go to a private school and that charter schools are not obliged to accept them?
They may be happy with their schools, but I’ll be damned if I’ll ever come close to understanding why floating on a pontoon boat on a small lake on a summer day is a thing. And with other boots crowding the lake! Strange custom.
The one question on that annual education Gallup pole that is consistently highly in the favor of public schools is the question asking parents with children in their local public schools if they are satisfied with the results.
Another question asks parents what they think of the nation’s public schools, not the local public schools their children attend, and the results of that question reveals how successful the ALEC, Walton Foundation’s (et al.) decades long smear campaign, based on misinformation and outright lies, to destroy our public schools, is succeeding.
While parents in every state and school district overwhelming think highly of the public schools their children attend, many of the same parents often think the rest of the nation’s public schools, that they have no personal experience with, are failing.
Majority of parents are happy with the public schools. There is no need for more choices. Give public schools the money they need to better their schools.