Teach Effectively!

Likely voters in the US believe that the US Congress is failing to fund education programs and believe that Congress should honor its commitment to schoolchildren, according to poll results released by the National School Boards Association. A wide majority, even including Repblicans, support full funding of the US No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Heartening as one might find this news, encouragement must be tempered by the fact that those polled apparently are poorly informed about the extent of federal spending on education. The electorate appears to believe that far more funding is going to education than is actually going to it.

There is a significant disconnect between the current federal investment in education funding and what voters think is spent and want spent. On average, voters believe that 20 percent of the federal budget is currently spent on K-12 education, but they want 37 percent of the budget spent on it. Both are a far cry from the 1.5 percent actually spent on K-12 education. Even Republican voters want 33 percent of the federal budget spent on education.

Shoot, if education actually received what funding the public thinks is going to education, that would be good. However, if we could get what goes there—regardless of the amount—spent on effective educational practices, and procedures, that would be even better, no?

Link to the press release for the NSBA poll or to the full report.