VCU Commonwealth Education Poll Finds Majority Support Charter School Programs, Oppose Tenure and Have Mixed Views about Test-Based Teacher Pay

By Mike Porter

Virginia residents are not well informed about charter schools but a majority support them when charter school programs are explained, according to a new statewide survey conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University.

The Commonwealth Education Poll finds only 8 percent say they have heard or read a lot about them, 27 percent have read or heard some, and the majority of 64 percent have heard or read nothing or not too much about charter schools. When a charter school program is described, a 56 percent majority favors a charter school program, while 26 percent oppose and 18 percent are undecided. Gov.-elect Robert McDonnell made increasing the number of charter schools in Virginia one of his key proposals for education.

Charter schools in Virginia operate under different rules than other states. When asked for an opinion about changing the state constitution to give Virginia charter schools more independence from local school boards on hiring and firing decisions, 37 percent favor, 44 percent oppose and the remaining 19 percent are undecided.

"While many state residents don’t know very much about charter schools, when the program is defined, Virginians support them by a 2-to-1 ratio,” said William C. Bosher, Jr., executive director, Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute and distinguished professor of public policy in the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs. “A plurality of both Democrats and Republicans opposes changing the state constitution to give Virginia’s charter schools more independence,” Bosher said.

The Commonwealth Education Poll was conducted by landline and cell telephone from Dec. 1 to Dec. 6, 2009, with a random sample of 1,001 adults in Virginia. The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points. This is the 10th annual Commonwealth Education Poll, conducted by VCU’s Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute (CEPI).  

Pay for performance proposals are also on the docket for the governor-elect’s education agenda. Most Virginians, 52 percent, believe that basing part of a teacher’s salary on student test scores will help the schools retain high quality teachers. At the same time, a majority, 52 percent, opposes paying teachers whose students perform well on tests more than those whose students perform poorly; 36 percent take the opposite view, saying teachers whose students perform well should be paid more than other teachers.

There are sizeable differences of opinion about test-based pay by family income and gender. School employees and retirees are more likely than other state residents to oppose test-based teacher pay and they are more skeptical that basing part of a teacher’s salary on student test scores will help schools retain high quality teachers.

Job tenure is a concept unique to the educational sector. When the concept of tenure is explained in a balanced way, the poll finds a plurality of 48 percent opposed to offering tenure to teachers, while 37 percent favor and 16 percent hold no opinion on the tenure issue. While more favorable toward the idea of tenure than other state residents, school employees and retirees show a surprising amount of divide on this issue; a 48 percent plurality of this group favor tenure, 38 percent oppose.

“Even though Virginians oppose both tenure and test-based teacher pay, they believe that using student achievement as part of teacher compensation will help retain the best,” Bosher said.

Other survey findings:

• School Funding Stays on Virginians’ Wish List. As state legislators look anew for ways to balance the state budget in the face of falling revenues, Virginians remain strongly supportive of funding for the public schools. About seven-in-10 Virginians, 69 percent, believe that the amount of money spent on the schools affects education quality a great deal or quite a lot. Fully 63 percent of Virginians say that schools do not have enough funds to meet their needs, while 27 percent say schools have enough funding now. At the same time, the public sees at least some waste in school budgets. Nearly one-in-five, 18 percent, say there is a lot of waste, 43 percent say schools waste some, and nearly three-in-10, 27 percent, say schools do not waste very much (or any) tax dollars.
• Which Cuts Hurt Education Quality? Regardless of public desires for more school funding, most local school districts are in the process of making significant reductions, not increases, to budgets for the schools. The survey asked about the expected effect of six types of budget cuts on the quality of education in local schools. More than three-quarters of Virginians expect all these cuts to hurt the quality of education either a lot or a little. The cuts seen as least likely to hurt education quality include layoffs of administrative staff -- 37 percent say these cuts would hurt a lot -- followed by cuts in teacher training and professional development, 49 percent say these cuts would hurt the quality of education a lot. Cuts expected to hurt the quality of education the most are those involving teacher layoffs; 74 percent say teacher layoffs would hurt a lot.
• Willingness to Pay for Schools and Other State Programs. Public schools top the list of programs that Virginians are willing to support with increased tax dollars in order to keep funding levels stable. Two-thirds of Virginians say they would pay more in taxes to keep school funding at its current level. About six-in-10 say they would pay more in taxes to keep state mental health services (61 percent) and aid to low income families (59 percent) at current levels. Fewer say the same about higher education funding (48 percent) and transportation (46 percent). A quarter of state residents are willing to pay more to keep funding for prisons at current levels.
• Role of Federal, State and Local Governments in the Schools. Virginians show some support for all levels of government being involved in the schools. A majority of Virginians, 51 percent, believe local school districts should have the primary responsibility for improving the schools, 35 percent say the state should have primary responsibility and 9 percent say the federal government should have primary responsibility. More than seven-in-10, or 72 percent, agree or strongly agree that the federal government needs to make sure that states are accountable for school performance. And 83 percent agree or strongly agree that states know more about the needs of their students and schools than does federal government.
• Higher Education Funding. A majority of state residents -- 52 percent -- say that public universities and colleges in the state don’t have enough funding to meet their needs, 34 percent say they have enough now. Those saying higher education needs more funding are more likely to think that funding increases should come from state tax increases than from tuition and fee increases.
• School Performance. Overall ratings of school performance at the state and local level remain more positive than negative. For example, 67 percent say their local schools provide an excellent or good education, 24 percent say they provide a fair or poor education. Parents of public school students rate the local schools more positively than do other residents.
• Evaluation of Specific Skills. When it comes to specific skills, majorities say the state schools are doing a good job in all five areas considered. Three-quarters of Virginians say the state schools do a good job teaching the basics such as reading, writing and mathematics, 16 percent say the state is doing a bad job in this area. Smaller majorities say the state schools do a good job providing skills needed for a four-year college degree (70 percent), for pursuing a vocational or technical career (64 percent), for obtaining a job (61 percent), or for preparing students for the workforce needs of the future (59 percent).
• Proposals to Increase Classroom Instruction. The survey looked at two proposals aimed at increasing time for classroom instruction: one based on increasing the days in school each year and a second based on increasing the hours in school each day. Opinion is divided about these proposals with the plurality against both. The survey finds 43 percent favor and 48 percent oppose increasing the number of days in a school year; 41 percent favor and 49 percent oppose increasing the number of hours in a school day.

"One of the striking aspects of the poll findings is the degree to which Republicans and Democrats can find common ground on education issues,” said Cary Funk, associate professor in the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs and director of the survey. “While Democrats are more supportive than Republicans of increased funding for the schools, when it comes to views about school performance and opinions related to issues such as teacher compensation and charter schools, there is a surprising degree of agreement between partisans.”

The entire 75-page report with complete questions and detailed tables of results is available at http://www.cepionline.org/.