The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, in Washington, has been tracking attitudes and views on education among African-Americans and the general public for six years through a series of national opinion polls. The chart below reflects the ratings given to their local public schools by national samples of black respondents over time, compared with national samples of the general population in the same surveys.
| Excellent/Good | Fair | Poor | Excellent/Good | Fair | Poor | |
| 1996 | 41.0 | 37.0 | 16.5 | 63.7 | 22.7 | 7.4 |
| 1997 | 34.3 | 37.7 | 23.3 | 56.9 | 26.2 | 13.3 |
| 1998 | 45.8 | 30.4 | 16.8 | 54.4 | 25.3 | 16.1 |
| 1999 | 39.7 | 35.2 | 22.9 | 59.0 | 26.5 | 11.2 |
| 2000 | 30.4 | 33.9 | 32.8 | 52.0 | 23.3 | 20.4 |
| 2002 | 35.2 | 37.3 | 25.4 | 53.7 | 27.3 | 14.3 |
NOTE: For its 2002 survey, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies polled national samples of 850 adult African-American and 850 Hispanic adults. The general-population sample of 850 adults included 53 African-Americans and 34 Hispanics who were also included in the African-American and Hispanic samples. Multiyear data for Hispanics were not available because they were polled separately in large numbers for the first time in 2002.
SOURCE: Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 2002 National Opinion Poll
Black Population |
General Population (percent) | |||||