National study raises question of bias in annual Phi Delta Kappa poll

Polling opinion about vouchers to send kids to parent-selected schools

Any hope for further educational reform under the next Presidency? If Bush gets in, will he have the courage of his Faith-Based Initiative to take a step beyond his educational policy in his first term, No Child Left Behind? On August 20, 2004, a foundation made a preemptive strike on testing public opinion to test for different results according to how questions were asked in regard to vouchers. It's results were released four days before the professional educatonist fraternity, Phi Delta Kappa could get the results to their biased questions out.

Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation:

“Parents want the freedom to choose a school based on its quality, not their address,” said Robert Enlow, executive director of the ... Foundation.  “This study reflects the support the Foundation encounters everyday across the country — parents want choice. They want an education that works for their child, regardless of whether the school is public or private. Unfortunately, well-funded groups which advocate only for government schools distort the views of the majority.”

"The study, sponsored by the Friedman Foundation, set out to determine, using a sound methodology of split sampling, if the annual Phi Delta Kappa poll, to be released on August 24, used wording that could artificially lower support for school choice.

"National study raises question of bias in annual Phi Delta Kappa poll: "The study, sponsored by the Friedman Foundation, set out to determine, using a sound methodology of split sampling, if the annual Phi Delta Kappa poll, to be released on August 24, used wording that could artificially lower support for school choice.

"Half of the sample was asked the more negative PDK question, 'do you favor or oppose allowing students and parents to choose a private school to attend at public expense?” Only 41 percent supported school vouchers when presented this way.  The other half was asked the more neutral question “do you favor or oppose allowing students and parents to choose any school, public or private, to attend using public funds?” The support was significantly higher with 63 percent supporting school vouchers."

Now, I've got to find out what Phi Delta Kappa's Poll claims, having just been released August 24,2004. I found it. It's long and complex, but on one question I noticed in a table the Poll of public opinion by PDK and Gallup asks "Would knowing that a candidate for national office supports vouchers for parents to use to pay for private schools make you more or less likely to vote for that candidate?" Results: Parents with kids in government-directed schools felt by 40% "More likely," by 44% "Less likely," by 12% "No difference (volunteerd)," and by 4% "Don't know." Parents with no children in any school were 41% "More likely," 45% "Less likely," 11% "No difference (volunteered)," and 3% "Don't know." I think that 40% of parents with kids in public schools supporting a President who advocates vouchers for them to send their kids to nonstate-directed schools is a powerful, serious indictment of the PDK, the statist National Education Association, and not just the Democratic Party, as we shall see in a moment.

But in the meanintime, an incredible blow has hit the falsely-identified "conservatives" in the Republican Party regarding the Platform Committee of their upcoming national convention in New York City (which has been placed under seige already by anarchists and hate criminals). As I was saying, you don't need to be a conservative to support a pluralization of government support for education at all levels, merely recognizing that all schooling for the different varieties of eudcational choice among the public is worthy of dollar-support from public taxation. Let the money follow the child to the school where the parents choose to send her or him. The Republicans dominating the adoption of the education plank for the 2004 Platform at the upcoming convention, we can't call them "liberals" either, would have none of pluralization. So, the old totalitarianism of the American school system has been re-inforced once again.

Here's what Timothy Carney reports in National Review (a thoroly conservative magazine, to be sure): "After all was done with the subcommittee, the first sentence appeared as, 'Public Education is a foundation of free and civil society [emphasis added].' Shackelford and others tried in full committee to add other kinds of education to that sentence, but they were defeated again, at the urging of [Rep. Phil] English," Republican of Pennsylvania whose work "had the endorsement of the National Education Association." Why couldn't there have been support for both state-directed education and nonstate-directed education? We had thot the Republicans at this point would have more principle and acumen than this statist stance of its subcommittee on Education. One think to watch over the next days is whether this education plank in the Platform will be approved, or at least contested from the floor. I'd bet not.