Surveys at Odds On Public's View Of School Choice

By Joanna Richardson

Three-quarters of the American public opposes sending children to private schools at public expense, a poll released by Phi Delta Kappa International and the Gallup Organization last week has found.

But the findings on school choice in the education fraternity's annual survey on attitudes toward public schools may be less significant in themselves, analysts suggest, than in what they say about the usefulness of polling as a way of gauging public sentiment on the issue.

While they were quickly seized on by opponents of private school choice, the results also generated new doubts about the validity of one-time "snapshots'' of...