(May 19, 2008) Californians place education at the top of public policy concerns, along with the economy and jobs, according to a survey released this week by California Business for Education Excellence Foundation (CBEE).

The statewide survey, conducted earlier this year, also found that Californians believe schools are getting worse, not better, by a 54 percent to 33 percent margin. Most believe the problems in the state’s education system are due to a lack of accountability, rather than a lack of funding, CBEE reported.

Problems Facing Schools

Voters identified the most serious problems facing the schools as:

• Too many students not performing at grade level (75 percent). 
• Too much money being spent on bureaucracy and administration (70 percent).

“These survey results finally answer the chicken and egg question: Which comes first: accountability or more money? This is another wake-up call to education leaders and state policymakers that the main problem with our schools is not money but the lack of accountability,” said James S. Lanich, CBEE Foundation president. “California already spends $67 billion a year on education, yet our students are not prepared for academic success.”

Achievement Gap/Testing

The survey also found Californians are keenly aware of an “achievement gap” between students of different ethnicities and economic backgrounds:

• 74 percent of voters see the achievement gap as a serious problem that must be addressed.
• Voters are optimistic, however, that high poverty schools with large minority populations can close the achievement gap.

Californians want clear-cut ways to evaluate the success or failure of schools, and they want parents to have more information available to them about school performance.
In this regard, voters see testing as a valuable tool in evaluating the performance of students, teachers and schools:

• 75 percent of voters believe that student testing is extremely, or very important in giving students and parents information about how well teachers and schools are doing. 
• 76 percent agree that testing is extremely, or very important in holding students and parents accountable.

Recommendations

Voters strongly support a number of recommendations for improving K-12 public education in California, according to the survey:

• 74 percent strongly support setting expectations for all schools to get all students to attain a minimum of grade-level proficiency each year in reading, writing and mathematics. 
• 72 percent strongly support making school performance data, such as overall student assessment test scores and grade level performance, available and understandable to the public, so parents can better understand what is happening within schools. 
• 68 percent strongly support giving parents clear options for when their local school is chronically low-performing, including easy-to-access tutoring services for their children, transfers to another school, and charter school options.

“This data confirms that parents miss the one measurement that matters the most: Is my child attaining grade-level proficiency in reading, writing, math and science? Whether or not the student is at grade level in these subjects will determine whether he or she will ever be ready for college or ready for work — or if he or she will even survive school without dropping out. Yet this type of clear, straightforward information is not readily available for the parents,” Lanich said.

James S. Lanich, president of California Business for Education Excellence Foundation, discusses business concerns about education at a recent gathering in Sacramento.

Methodology

This statewide telephone survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted from February 4-10 by the national research firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.

This study was made possible by the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

CBEE Foundation

CBEE Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan foundation whose mission is to raise student academic achievement and close achievement gaps in California’s public schools. This is done by providing a voice to high-performing schools so that all schools can replicate their best practices and get all students to a minimum of grade-level proficiency every year.

More information on CBEE can be found at www.cbeefoundation.org