The more the public learns about the No Child Left Behind Act, the less it agrees with the annual testing requirements and other strategies used to implement it, an annual opinion survey on public schools suggests.
“The 37th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools” is posted by Phi Delta Kappa International.
“The 37th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools” found that 68 percent of the 1,000 respondents do not think a single test provides an accurate picture of how well a school is performing; and that 80 percent said testing students only in reading and mathe-matics does not provide a fair picture of whether a school needs improvement.
Gallup also found a “strong preference” for strategies that rely on improving traditional public schools rather than finding alternatives to the system. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said they think the focus should be on reforming existing public schools, while 23 percent favored alternatives to those schools.
