Why Do Americans Rate Their Local Public Schools So Favorably?

The following paper from Professor Martin West appeared on The Brookings Institution website on October 23, 2014.

Americans assign far higher grades to the public schools in their local community than to the public schools of the nation as a whole.  In the 2014 Education Next survey, for example, 47 percent of the public gave their local public schools a grade of “A” or “B,” while 18 percent gave them a “D” or “F.”  When asked to rate the nation’s public schools, just 20 percent awarded an “A” or a “B,” and 24 percent handed out a “D” or “F”.

This is hardly news. The annual Phi Delta Kappa poll first documented this pattern in 1981; it has recurred each year since.  Yet just what to make of this trend remains a point of debate.

For some, the pattern suggests that American public schools are better than is widely perceived.  If most Americans are reasonably satisfied with the public schools in their local community, which they know best, then perhaps their more critical views of public schools nationally are a product of distorted or sensational media coverage.  And, by extension, perhaps the urgency of school reform has been exaggerated.

For others, the pattern simply confirms Americans willingness to delude themselves when responding to surveys.  After all, they ask, how many parents would admit to an interviewer – or even to themselves – that the school their child attends is mediocre?  And, in fact, parents of school-aged children are even more positive than other Americans about their local public schools, with 58 percent assigning them an “A” or “B” grade.  From this perspective, evaluations of the nation’s public schools offer the more accurate gauge of system performance.

Continue reading at www.brookings.edu.