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Four Takes on the Phi Delta Kappa Education Poll: Pretty Darn Klever, Huh?

It was to my youthful bemusement that today I ran across several edublog postings about a new “PDK” poll. PDK? At first I wondered that might stand for: Pretty Darn Klever? (or Kute?) Maybe Precociously Delightful Kid? (Guess they weren’t really talking about me, though….)

It’s actually the 43rd Phi Delta Kappa poll of American opinion on the public schools. Who has time to actually read it these days? Maybe you do, but instead I’ll just point you to some highlights brought out by more astute commentators:

  • Writing on his Education Week blog, Rick Hess notes a promising response on teacher effectiveness vs. class size, while bringing attention to Americans’ increasingly polarized views about teacher unions
  • Edspresso calls some of the results into question because it “lacks much needed context” that could better inform respondents’ answers about issues such as online learning and school choice
  • Adam Emerson at redefinED has his own justified critique, observing that the wording of the question on vouchers suppressed favorable responses — quite a contrast to the Education Next survey released a couple weeks ago
  • Alexander Russo summarizes a USA Today story that documents the phenomenon of more Americans loving their local schools while being down on the American public education in general

There. Pointing you to the revealing insights of other well-informed education observers rather than taking extra time to pore over the pages of the survey itself. That’s Pretty Darn Klever, don’t you think?