Hart Research Associates
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Hart Research Associates
DATE: August 20, 2013
RE: Boston Voter Survey on Public Education
While much has been said and written about the Boston public schools, the voices of rank-and-file voters – especially parents of children in the public schools – are heard too rarely in our education debates. To help remedy this imbalance, AFT commissioned Hart Research to survey Boston voters, including a substantial sample of public school parents. The survey explores Bostonians’ views on the kind of education leadership the city needs today, as it prepares to elect a new mayor for the first time in twenty years.
The survey consisted of interviews with 626 registered voters, conducted by telephone (both landline and cell) from August 9-13, 2013. Oversample interviews were conducted with public school parents (parents with children who attend a regular public school and/or a charter public school), to provide reliable results among parents (n=203), but parents are weighted to their proper proportion within the overall voter sample. The margin of error on survey results is ±4.5 percentage points for the full sample, and ±7.1 percentage points for parents.
This executive summary reviews the survey’s five key findings:
1. Education will be – by far – the most important issue for voters in this year’s mayoral election. Boston voters are looking to elect an “education mayor” who will make strengthening the public schools the central priority of his or her administration.
2. Voters are not attracted to a pro-charter candidate who wants to lift the cap on charter schools. Instead, they want to elect a mayor who will prioritize improving regular public schools over charter expansion.
3. Voters hope to elect a mayor who will work with teachers and their union to improve schools, not a candidate who “stands up” to the teachers union. A candidate who is supported by Boston teachers will enjoy a significant advantage in this election.
4. The voting public supports extending the length of the school day, but believes that school employees should be compensated for the extra time they are required to work. Public school parents agree.
5. Voters will reward candidates who advocate an investment agenda focused on strengthening the city’s regular public schools.
1) Education will be the most important issue – by far – for voters in this year’s mayoral election. Boston voters are looking to elect an “education mayor” who will make strengthening the public schools the central priority of his or her administration.
§ Boston voters say that dealing with education and the schools should be the single highest priority for the city’s next mayor.
Over half (55%) of voters say that education is one of the two most important priorities for the next mayor to deal with, far ahead of crime (34%), jobs (32%), or housing (17%). The proportion is even higher (63%) among parents. Education is ranked first by white, African-American, and Hispanic voters, and by voters in all age groups. [q3a]
§ Over two-thirds of voters (69%) – and 87% of parents -- say that the candidates’ records and positions on education issues will be very important in making their voting decisions this year. [Q5]
§ Bostonians see public schools as the single most important institution for the future of their community. [q3b]
The voting public says that public schools are by far the most important institution for providing a good future for their communities. Fifty-nine percent (58%) choose public schools, far ahead of law enforcement (17%), businesses (12%), or religious institutions (7%).
2) Voters are not attracted to a pro-charter school candidate who wants to lift the cap on charter schools, and they oppose shifting resources from regular public schools to charters. There is a huge political opening for candidates who will prioritize improving regular public schools over charter expansion.
§ When Boston voters consider two hypothetical mayoral candidates with opposed views on charter schools, they reject the pro-charter candidate by better than a two-to-one margin.
Given the following choice of approaches for improving education, only 29% prefer the pro-charter candidate while two-thirds (67%) chose the candidate focused on the regular public schools that serve the large majority of Boston’s students: [q11b]
CANDIDATE A) We should lift the cap and open more charter schools, so that parents have more choice of public schools they can send their children to. (29% agree)
CANDIDATE B) We should focus more on improving the regular public schools that serve the large majority of Boston's students and less on charters that only serve a few (67% agree)
Significantly, public school parents support the regular public school candidate by a ratio of two-to-one (62% to 31%). Support for the regular public school candidate is very widespread, even including groups often portrayed as constituencies for charters: African-Americans (67%), Hispanics (75%), lower-income voters (74%), and young voters (67%).
§ When it comes to charter schools, voters want to see accountability not expansion.
Only one voter in five (21%) wants to open more charter schools if that entails reducing spending on regular public schools, while 74% are opposed (among parents 27% are in favor, 66% opposed). However, fully 90% (83% of parents) want to hold charters accountable for their performance the way regular public schools are. [c173, c174]
3) Voters hope to elect a mayor who will work with teachers and their union to improve schools – not a candidate who will “stand up” to teachers unions. A candidate who is supported by teachers will enjoy a significant advantage in this election.
§ By two to one, parents say they want a mayor who will work with the teachers union, because teachers have important ideas for improving schools, rather than one who will “stand up to teachers unions because they are an obstacle to improving schools.” [q11c]
Fully 83% of African-Americans and 79% of Hispanic voters prefer a mayoral candidate who will work with the union.
§ Voters would have more confidence in a candidate’s education leadership if he or she had the support of Boston’s teachers and their union. [q13]
If a candidate for mayor had the support of Boston teachers and the teachers union, voters say this would give them more (65%) not less (16%) confidence that the candidate would work to improve public schools. Parents agree even more strongly, 70% to 11%.
§ Voters want the next mayor to improve teaching quality by giving struggling teachers support and training (65%), not by removing poorly performing teachers from the classroom and hiring new teachers (31%). [q11d]
4) The voting public supports extending the length of the school day, but believes that school employees should be compensated for the extra time they are required to work. Public school parents agree.
§ Both voters overall (71%) and public school parents (70%) favor a proposal to extend the school day by one hour. (q14a) However, by even larger margins (76% of voters, 79% of parents) they also believe school employees should have their salaries increased to compensate them for the additional hours worked. (q14b)
Interestingly, the insistence that employees be compensated for the additional time worked is just as strong among voters who favor the extended day (76% say increase salaries) as those who oppose the extended day (75%). This means that 54% of all voters favor extending the day with compensation, while only 14% feel it should be extended without compensating employees.
5) Voters will reward candidates who advocate an investment agenda focused on strengthening the city’s regular public schools.
§ Boston voters have an ambitious agenda for improving their public schools. They are looking for a mayor who is ready to invest in the regular public schools, while holding charter schools more accountable.
The survey measured public support for a wide range of potential education policy initiatives. The eight ideas below all enjoy the support of at least 80% of voters, and also 80% or more of public school parents. Bostonians want to elect a mayor committed to providing additional resources to struggling schools, offering more after-school enrichment programs, reducing class sizes, creating more community schools, and investing in infrastructure. In order to free up funding for these kinds of priorities, voters want to cut spending on the central administration. And they want to hold charter schools accountable for their performance. [Q12]
Registered Voters% / Public school parents
%
Provide extra resources and support to turn around struggling schools / 93 / 91
Provide more after-school enrichment programs / 93 / 92
Reduce spending on the school district bureaucracy and put more money into classrooms / 90 / 92
Hold charter schools accountable for their performance, the way regular public schools are / 90 / 83
Create more community schools that serve as neighborhood hubs, stay open longer, provide extra academic enrichment for students, and offer health services for families. / 89 / 87
Reduce class sizes, especially in the early grades / 87 / 87
Make major new investments in school construction, renovation, and maintenance, supported by state funding / 83 / 89
Set tougher school discipline standards and enforce them consistently / 81 / 85
§ Two education proposals are overwhelmingly rejected by voters, and likely to hurt candidates that embrace them at the ballot box: opening more charter schools at the expense of regular public schools, and reducing pension and health benefits for Boston school employees.
Three-quarters (74%) of voters, and two-thirds (66%) of parents, oppose the idea of reducing spending on public schools and using the funds to open more charter schools. Strong opposition to shifting resources to charter schools is found among nearly all voter groups, including women (76%), younger voters (78%), African-Americans (75%), and Hispanics (77%). [c174]
We also find overwhelming opposition to the idea of reducing benefits for teachers and other school employees. Three-fourths (75%) of voters reject the proposal, including 58% who are strongly opposed. [c175]