Americans may overwhelmingly believe that education is vitally important to the nation's economic success. But that doesn't mean they're willing to keep footing the bill for it. According to a recent AP-Stanford poll, which assessed views on both K-12 and post-secondary education, 88 percent of Americans say ?economic prosperity and quality education are closely entwined? but only 42 percent favor raising taxes to support public schooling. According to Ronald Bartlett of Texas, we're continually pouring money into the government supposedly to improve education, and it's not improving.?
Someone's learning.
Though, while Ron might be enlightened on the school spending issue, the majority of Americans still have a lot to learn about our education system. When asked where blame falls for the state of our nation's student achievement, 59 percent of those polled feel that federal officials shoulder ?a good deal? or ?a lot? of the responsibility. Only 35 percent feel the same about teachers. Further, when asked what problems facing American public education are ?very? or ?extremely? serious, only 35 percent thought bad teachers were an issue.
And, in a manner reminiscent of a recent Onion article, the public holds students accountable for their own academic shortcomings. Of all issues troubling our nation's public schools, lack of student discipline ranked highest (59 percent felt it was a ?very? or ?extremely serious? problem). At the college level, seven in ten individuals polled blame students for the country's low college graduation rate.
(The poll interviewed 1,001 adults through random landline and cell phone calls, between September 23 and 30. It has a sampling error of ? 3.5 percent.)
?Daniela Fairchild
