Groundhog Day: Americans Again Rate Local Schools Higher than Schools of
the Nation
Stephen Krashen
As is the case every year, the PDK/Gallup poll (September 2014)
found that people rate their local schools much more positively than they do
schools in the US in general.
The differences, as usual, were striking: Fifty percent of respondents
said they would give the public schools in their neighborhood a grade or A or
B, but only 17% would give public schools in the nation A or B. When
asked about the school their oldest child attends, 67% said they would give the
school at A or B, suggesting that those who have more information about local
schools rate them more highly.
Gerald Bracey (2009) gave a logical explanation for this phenomenon:
"Americans never hear anything positive about the nation's schools,"
noting that "negative information flows almost daily from media,
politicians, and ideologues." The finding that American students
score at the top of the world on international tests when poverty is
statistically controlled (e.g. Carnoy and Rothstein, 2013) is never mentioned.
Education Secretary Duncan (also in 2009) gave his opinion of why people
think local schools are better than schools in general: "Too many people
don't understand how bad their own schools are." Duncan said that the
public needs to be "woken up" to see that their own children are
being short-changed. In other words, parents are not to be trusted on
evaluating the quality of their own child's education, despite the fact that
they are daily witnesses to the results of their child's schooling.
Bushaw, J. and Calderon, V. 2014. Try it again, Uncle Sam: The 46th
Annual PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. Phi
Delta Kappan, 96(1): 8-20.
Bracey, G. 2009. Experience outweighs rhetoric. Phi Delta Kappen 91(1):
11
Carnoy, M and Rothstein, R. 2013, What Do International Tests Really
Show Us about U.S. Student Performance. Washington DC: Economic Policy
Institute. 2012. http://www.epi.org/).
Duncan, A. 2009. Quality education is our moon shot. Phi Delta Kappan 91(1), 24–9.
Krashen, S. and Ohler, J. 2009. The Bad Schools Syndrome. http://substancenews.net/articles.php?page=940§ion=Article
Noe students can paraphrase my essay easily by our unique services. It is on evaluating the quality of their own child's education,
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