Teachers versus the Public: What Americans Think about Schools and How to Fix Them

4. My Back Yard

Perhaps the divide between the general public and teachers shrinks when people are asked about schools in their local community. It could be that public thinking about local schools reflects direct experiences with the schools or is shaped by conversations with friends and neighbors, while its opinions about the nation’s schools are shaped more by ideological speculation or by news reports about troubled schools in other places. People might endorse policies proposed for the nation as a whole that they would reject out of hand if proposed for local schools. Both teachers and the public may think differently about educational issues depending on the context in which proposals are made. People often favor certain policies as long as they are not implemented in their immediate vicinity. The phenomenon is so widespread that it has acquired a catchphrase and acronym: the Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) syndrome. People in Palo Alto, California, want high-speed rail, but not if it runs through their town. People in Nevada agree that low-level radioactive waste needs to be collected and safely deposited somewhere, but not at nearby Yucca Mountain. People on Cape Cod favor windgenerated energy, as long as the wind turbines are not placed in Nantucket Sound. It is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that the NIMBY syndrome applies to education as well. Members of the public may want to fix the nation’s schools by adopting strong policy innovations everywhere but in their own communities. The divide between teachers and the public may collapse when the framing of the issue shifts from the national to the local stage. CHAP TER FOUR My Back Yard 45 Grading Schools Public evaluations of public schools at both the national and local level have been collected by two separate polling operations, the PDK/Gallup and Education Next polls, and data are available that cover an extended period of time. The results have consistently shown much higher evaluations of schools in respondents’ local community than of schools in the nation as a whole. PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools Every year since 1981, the education journal Phi Delta Kappan (PDK) has asked a nationally representative sample of adults to evaluate both the nation’s schools and the schools in the respondent’s own community on the same “A” to “F” scale traditionally used to grade students. The PDK poll has shown fluctuations in voter evaluations over time (see figure 4-1), but between 1981 and 2001, on average, 25 percent of the public gave the nation’s schools an “A” or a “B” while 22 percent gave them a “D” or an “F.” The remaining half to three-fifths awarded a gentlemanly “C.” In recent years, evaluations have been noticeably lower. For the six years from 2007 to 2012, only 20 percent of PDK respondents give the nation’s schools one of the two highest marks. The percentage giving schools one of the two lowest grades climbs to 26 percent. But if the respondents took a critical stance toward the nation’s schools, the same cannot be said of their assessment of schools in their own community . PDK first began asking about local schools in 1974. Between that year and 2008, evaluations fluctuated from one period to the next (see figure 4-1), but 48 percent of those responding gave, on average, a grade of “A” or “B” to the schools in their community. During the most recent period, 2007 to 2012, the average is slightly higher—50 percent.1 Ednext Poll Much the same results emerge from the Ednext poll administered between 2007 and 2012.2 On average, 20 percent of the public give the nation’s schools an “A” or a “B,” while 25 percent hand them one of the two lowest grades; the remainder awarded schools a middling “C.” When respondents are asked about local schools, 44 percent, on average, award them an “A” or a “B” and only 19 percent give them a “D” or an “F.” 46 My Back Yard In other words, almost half of the public rate local community schools as deserving one of the two highest grades, while only about one-fifth say that they deserve one of the two worst grades. In short, both surveys show local schools receiving twice as many high grades as the nation’s schools receive. The National-Local Puzzle The much higher...