What Americans Think about their Schools:

1. What Americans Think about their Schools: A Brief Overview with Experimental Findings on the Persuasive Appeal of Academic Research to Follow William Howell (University of Chicago)

2. 2007 Education Next – PEPG Survey • Online, stratified nationally representative sample • 2,000 respondents • Ethnicity: • 1,482 non-Hispanic whites • 233 non-Hispanic blacks • 171 Hispanics • School Employee: • 309 current/former public school employees • 1,691 no employment in public schools • Parental Status: • 811 parents of school-age children

3. Section I: Public Opinion on Accountability- and Choice-Based reforms

4. No Child Left Behind As you may know, the No Child Left Behind Act requires states to set standards in math and reading and to test students each year to determine whether the standards are being met. This year, Congress is deciding whether to renew the No Child Left Behind Act. What do you think Congress should do? Should they…

5. As you may know, federal legislation requires states to set standards in math and reading and to test students each year to determine whether the standards are being met. This year, Congress is deciding whether to renew this federal legislation. What do you think Congress should do? Should they… No Child Left Behind

6. No Child Left Behind Pct supporting reauthorization with no more than minor changes

7. No Child Left Behind Under No Child Left Behind, should there be a single national standard and a single national test for all students in the United States? Or do you think that there should be different standards and tests in different states?

8. In some states, students in certain grades must pass an exam before they are eligible to move on to the next grade. Do you support or oppose this requirement? Student Accountability In some states, students must pass an exam before they are eligible to receive a high school diploma. Do you support of oppose this requirement?

9. School Accountability under NCLB: Suppose a public school does not meet state-determined standards for five years in a row. Do you support or oppose the following measures? Replacing Teachers Replacing the Principal Turning the School into a Charter School

10. Charter Schools Many states allow for the formation of charter schools, which are privately managed under a renewable performance contract that exempts them from many of the regulations of other public schools. Do you support or oppose the formation of charter schools?

11. Do you think charter schools should be given more, less, or the same amount of government funding for each child as other public schools? Charter Schools

12. Charter schools are free to teach religion. Charter Schools Based on what you have heard about charter schools, is the following statement true or false?

13. Charter Schools Charter schools may not charge tuition. Based on what you have heard about charter schools, is the following statement true or false?

14. Choice Reforms

15. Choice Reforms

16. Section II: An Experiment Intended to Assess the Persuasive Appeal of Academic Research on Education

17. Experiment’s motivation • Public plays an important role in determining the type of education reforms that school board members, mayors, and legislators pursue, and the vigor with which they do so. • Content of public views on education is poorly documented. • Most surveys perfunctory. • Longer surveys (e.g. PDK) tend to be conducted by self described advocacy groups with vested interest in certain findings. • Foundations of public views on education even more poorly understood. • Possible sources: sociotropic versus egotropic considerations, race/racism, political ideology, “public school ideology”, notions of localism, and others besides. • This experiment focuses on academic research--or, more specifically, the extent to which academic research as it is usually presented to the public through the media.

18. “Facts” about “consumers” of education research • Views are poorly informed, unorganized, and volatile (Converse 1964) • Do not subscribe to academic journals. • Lack the training required to evaluate research. • Learn about most education research from the media, which usually provides a very perfunctory summary of a study’s main findings, some kind of characterization of the individual or research organization that produced it, and commentary from “experts”. • On the basis of this information, consumers must decide whether or not to change their views about a policy.

19. Persuasive appeal of research Whether reports about research lead to changes in opinion may depend upon: 1) extent to which the findings challenge prior views; 2) the political identity of the research organization that issued the study; note literature on source effects (Lupia and McCubbins 1998; Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991; Page, Shapiro, and Dempsey 1987; Kuklinski and Hurley 1994; Tomz and Sniderman 2005) 3) extent to which findings confirm prior choices made.

20. The Experiment Baseline condition: “A prominent research organization in Washington D.C. recently released a study comparing the test scores of similar students in private and public schools.” Question: “What about you? Do you think similar students who attend private or public schools score higher on standardized tests?” Response Categories: a) Private school students score higher; b) Public school students score higher; c) There is no difference Four Treatment Conditions “According to a prominent LIBERAL/CONSERVATIVE research organization in Washington D.C., students in private schools SCORE HIGHER/DO NOT SCORE HIGHER than comparable students in public schools.”

21. Beliefs of Overall Population

22. Beliefs of Overall Population

23. Beliefs of Overall Population

24. Beliefs of Liberals, Moderates, and Conservatives

25. Beliefs of Liberals, Moderates, and Conservatives

26. Beliefs of Liberals, Moderates, and Conservatives

27. Beliefs of School Voucher Supporters and Opponents

28. Beliefs of Public School Parents, Private School Parents, and Non-Parents

29. Beliefs of Public School Parents, Private School Parents, and Non-Parents

30. Beliefs of Public School Parents, Private School Parents, and Non-Parents

31. Beliefs of Individuals with Different Evaluations of Public Schools in their Communities

32. Beliefs of Individuals from Household with Different Levels of Education

33. Some modest conclusions On the basis of the experimental findings, we can conclude that: • General consensus about the performance of private and public school students; • tendency to update in light of new research appears asymmetric; • magnitude of research effects differ markedly for different segments of the American public; • extent of updating differs systematically by ideology, support for vouchers, public/private school attendance, but not for education or one’s views about the quality of local public schools; • generally, effects greatest when research confirms either one’s ideological orientation, one’s policy views, or the personal choices one has made on behalf of one’s children. • Take away Pat’s chair, he can only do harm.