Americans Clueless about public education according to new survey

Posted By CotoBlogzz

Rancho Santa Margarita, CA - According to a new poll by two groups, Phi Delta Kappa International and Gallup, Americans are clueless about what is going on with public education.  The survey shows that a majority of Americans have never heard of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a U.S. education initiative that seeks to bring diverse state curricula into alignment with each other by following the principles of standards-based education reform. The initiative is sponsored by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).

Critics of CCSS such as Dr. Bill Evers, former Research Fellow at Hoover Institution  stated “Just as defenders of socialism used to conjure up ideal socialist societies in order to defend socialism, defenders of Common Core curriculum standards like to defend utopian Common Core.  We critics of Common Core are correct in attacking really-existing Common Core, “referring to typical CCSS implementation.

When North Carolina Lt. Governor Dan Forest, who continues to stand up for educational freedom in his state by questioning the stakes connected to the implementation of the Common Core national education standards, asked the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to respond to  67 unanswered questions about the Common Core in North Carolina,  to be delivered before the State Board of Education meeting later this month,  the DPI requested that Forest provide 10,000 pieces of blank paper.  Forest obliged and sent it  the requested reams of paper, according to Foundry’s Elizabeth Henry.

The poll indicates that just like with ObamaCare, the more the public knows about CCSS, the more dissatisfied it is with standardized tests.

The key findings were: 

• 62 percent of those surveyed had never heard of the standards. Even among those with children in public schools
• Only 45 percent had heard of the Common Core.
• Only 22 percent said testing helped the performance of their local school, down from 28 percent in 2007.
• 36 percent said that testing was hurting school performance.

Americans are also growing wary of using students’ standardized tests to evaluate teachers. In just one year, the percentage of respondents who oppose using tests for teacher evaluations grew from 47 percent to 58 percent

Tonight, at 4pm ET, the two groups that conducted the survey --Phi Delta Kappa International and Gallup-- are holding a free webinar on the survey's top 5 key findings.  You can register here. You will be able to email the survey's creators with comments and questions, and download their entire report for free.