Survey reveals growing gap . . .

Here is a link to an executive summary of the fifth annual survey conducted by Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) and Education Next on education issues.  The complete results can be found here at Education Next.   You can take the survey and compare your answers here.

Basically, opinions of the public have changed little in the last year, but teacher opposition to many reforms has increased, placing them more at odds with views of the general public.  This could be a result of the problems teacher unions have faced in multiple states such as Wisconsin and the continuing public debate over charters, merit pay, and teacher quality.  An example of the growing gap between the opinions of teachers and the public can be seen in the chart below from this Education Next article.



Other questions focus on education issues like choosing between increasing teacher salary by $10,000 or reducing class size by three students, using student achievement data in teacher evaluation, testing practices, teacher accreditation, raising taxes to support schools, and knowledge of graduation rates nationally and locally.  It is interesting to review the results and see the differences.  The data is disaggregated using eight categories such as ethnicity, affluence, teacher, and parent.