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Survey Results from NSBAC Show Public Support for Public Schools

Robert Rader Executive Director, CABE

The National School Boards Action Center, the advocacy arm of the National School Boards Association, recently released a survey of more than 1,000 likely 2020 voters on their opinions about public schools.

In this presidential election year, such results should provide a wakeup call for those supporting vouchers and other concerns.

The survey contained oversamples of 100 African Americans, 100 Latinx, 100 parents of school-age children, and 100 battleground state voters. Here are just some of the results quoted in the survey: • Voters across the board are committed to and favorable toward local public schools and teachers in their community. A majority (58 percent) of voters like school boards as well. • Voters are committed to investing in public schools, teachers, ensuring safety, and supporting the teaching of real-world skills. • Voters support increased funding for public schools even if it increases their taxes. • Voters are vigilant about where their tax dollars go and want it to go to schools that serve the public and meet standards (under school board oversight) • Voters are skeptical and critical about elected officials doing a good job on education. • Teachers, local public schools, and local school boards enjoy net

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positive favorable ratings among voters nationwide. • Teachers in your community: 80 percent are favorable, including 45 percent who are very favorable • Local school boards: 58 percent are favorable, including 21 percent who are very favorable • Across demographics, voters are net-favorable of their local school boards. Voters in the Northeast (24 percent very favorable), South (25 percent very favorable), and in rural areas of the country (28 percent very favorable) tend to have higher favorable ratings of their local school boards than others • As we have seen in other work, voters are more likely to rate the job public schools in their own community are doing positively than they are public schools at the national level. • African American voters are more likely to give their local public schools low ratings – 48 percent rate them as excellent/good and 46 percent rate them as just fair/poor. • Voters across the board are oriented toward public education and are looking to their elected officials – of both parties and at all levels – to prioritize public education and do a better job addressing it. • Voters do not think elected officials are paying enough attention to the state of public schools. • Ensuring public schools are safe and… teaching real-world skills are seen as very big problems and extremely important to address. The lack of quality teachers, inadequate funding and resources, and not enough training and support for teachers fall into a second tier of priorities. • Nearly two-thirds of voters (64 percent) think funding for public schools should be increased while a quarter (26 percent) think funding should be kept the same and only 6 percent think funding should be decreased. This is a nationwide survey and responses cannot be extrapolated for Connecticut voters. However, it is worth noting how strong support for public education appears to be.

The survey had a +/- 3.1 percent margin of error. It can be found at https://nsbac.org/2020-poll/.

Advocacy Institute – (l to r) CABE VP for Government Relations Michael Purcaro (Ellington), NSBA Northeast Region Director Lydia Tedone (Simsbury), CABE Executive Director Robert Rader, President Donald Harris (Bloomfield), Federal Relations Chair Becky Tyrell (Plainville), Immediate Past President Robert Mitchell (Montville), CABE Sr. Staff Associate for Government Relations Sheila McKay, and CABE Deputy Director and General Counsel Patrice McCarthy participated in the National School Boards Association’s (NSBA) Advocacy Institute prior to meeting with members of the Connecticut Congressional Delegation.