Tomorrow's
Accents Online e-newsletter from ASBO highlights a recent poll of American's attitudes toward public schools. You can read our summary in Accents, or just head straight to the
Phi Delta Kappa International site for the full results. The upshot is that the public is supportive of public schools, but that the popularity of charters is rising, there is broad skepticism about union influence on education (and even more about state-level government), and they think that "last hired, first fired" should not outweigh a principal's evaluation when reducing staff.
So while we'll be highlighting this well established poll to our ASBO members, I thought I would also point out that the poll is not without its critics in Washington. The pro-charter school group Center for Education Reform has already put out
a memo critical of the poll and the way in which the questions were asked.
Check out the results for yourself--it's good insight into some of the issues that might come up at your next board meeting.