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September 4, 2002, 9:00 a.m. Phi Delta Krappa Misrepresenting school-choice opinion. By John E. Hock

hi Delta Kappa, the international association for educators, released its annual survey on the public's attitudes toward the public schools recently, and many news organizations trumpeted a figure from the poll that indicated a majority (52 percent) of Americans opposes the use of public funds to finance school-choice options. With headlines such as "Poll: Majority Oppose School Vouchers," readers throughout the country were given the impression that, despite the Supreme Court's recent ruling upholding the constitutionality of vouchers, the American public had not warmed to the idea of greater educational freedom. Meanwhile, a poll conducted by Zogby International finds that 63 percent of the public supports school choice. What gives?

What most news organizations did not report was the fact that the PDK poll's question was changed several years ago, seemingly to elicit a negative response toward vouchers. Nor was it pointed out that despite the poll's slant, the support for vouchers showed a dramatic increase from last year's poll.

In 1991, the PDK poll indicated that 50 percent of Americans were in favor of vouchers, which the question defined as a government-funded program allowing parents to choose among public, private, and parochial schools. This figure must have alarmed the poll conductors, because in 1993, the question reappeared on the poll with a much different wording: "Do you favor or oppose allowing students and parents to choose a private school to attend at public expense?"

Compare the phrase "at public expense" to the neutrally worded description of vouchers in the prior and it should come as no surprise that the percentage of positive respondents dropped to 24 percent in 1993. Is it really plausible to suppose that support for vouchers dropped by half in the span of two years for no apparent reason?

Social scientists have long known that polling is a very delicate business, with even subtle variances in the phrasing of questions potentially producing dramatically different results.

The phrase "at public expense" carries an obvious negative connotation, but the truth is, every voucher program in the country uses fewer funds than the per-pupil spending of local school districts. In fact, in most cases, the voucher amount is less than half of what school districts spend per student.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the poll is that despite the negative slant, the percentage of respondents in favor of vouchers increased 12 points from 34 to 46 percent in this year's poll, a jump of more than one-third.

Fortunately, the PDK poll is not the only source of information available to the American public. The Center for Education Reform also recently released a poll conducted by Zogby which included a much more neutrally worded question about voucher support, and predictably, produced decidedly different results.

Of the 1,204 adults surveyed, 63 percent said they either somewhat or strongly supported "allowing poor parents to be given the tax dollars allotted for their child's education and permitting them to use those dollars in the form of a scholarship to attend a private, public or parochial school of their choosing."

Clearly, the question is not intended to sway the respondent toward one answer or another. It would indicate that support for school choice is much higher than the PDK poll suggests. In addition, the support is consistent across racial and political lines, and in families with children and without.

The ease with which groups manipulate poll results represents one of the dirty little secrets of politics. An exhaustive study of public opinion and school choice conducted by Stanford scholar Terry Moe, however, found widespread support for the concept of choice after careful introduction of neutrally worded information about the concept. Moe conducted a sophisticated and in-depth opinion poll, finding that parents were more supportive of vouchers than nonparents, private-school parents were more supportive than public school parents, and blacks and hispanics were more supportive than whites.

Overall, Moe finds that 60 percent of respondents favor a universal voucher system, while 32 percent oppose it. "Vouchers appeal to broad constituencies," Moe concludes. And the results of PDK's own poll would indicate that the appeal is growing, no matter how questionable the question.

— John E. Hock is the director of media relations for Children First America, an organization that believes all families, regardless of their incomes, should have the opportunity to choose the K-12 school that best fulfills the hopes and dreams they have for their children.