Where Americans Stand on Public K-12 Education: A flawed but interesting report

A recent report from Public Agenda compiled public opinion surveys to show where the American public stands on education issues. The report notes the importance of gauging current public understandings about education, particularly given three major policy changes in the past 10 years: Race to the Top, the Common Core State Standards, and the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Gustavo E. Fischman and Kevin Winn of Arizona State University reviewed Our Next Assignment: Where Americans Stand on Public K-12 Education: A Review of Recent Opinion Research. They find that the report makes a unique contribution in its gathering of many surveys into a single report, as well as its inclusion of interviews with employers. But a lack of methodological clarity makes many of the report’s conclusions questionable.

The report is also inconsistent in how it addresses respondents from different demographic groups (e.g., race, class, political affiliation) and in how it treats disaggregated data, resulting in an inability to generalize to the population or to any subgroup. Therefore, the conclusions are cursory and incomplete, requiring further study and research.

For these reasons, Fischman and Winn do not recommend that the report be used to make policy, but they do see the report as a good starting point for understanding where more research should be undertaken. As the report’s authors accurately point out, this includes incorporating the often-ignored voices of students and parents.

Find the review, by Gustavo E. Fischman and Kevin Winn.

Find Our Next Assignment: Where Americans Stand on Public K-12 Education: A Review of Recent Opinion Research, written by Rebecca Silliman and David Schleifer and published by Public Agenda.