P a g e | 10
Education
Education policy
The 2015 Sangamon County Citizen Survey included several questions examining education
policy including support for charter schools, school vouchers (private/charter schools at
taxpayer expense), and bullying prevention. We examine levels of support among public school
parents, private school parents, and Sangamon County residents who did not have a child
between the ages of five and 18.
100%
90%
Support for a variety of education policies
93%
88%
89%
75%
80%
67%
70%
60%
63%
61%
50%
40%
30%
20%
20%
26%
10%
0%
Support bullying prevention
Favor idea of charter schools
Public school parents
Private school parents
Favor school vouchers
Not parents
KEY FINDINGS:
Eighty-nine percent of individuals believe bullying prevention (including physical and
cyber-bullying) should be part of school curriculum. This is higher than the national
average of 78 percent of national survey respondents in the 2012 PDK/Gallup poll who
support such an initiative.1
While 63 percent of respondents in the 2015 Citizen Survey favor the idea of charter
schools, only 26 percent favor allowing students and parents to choose a private school
to attend at the public’s expense (school vouchers). Nationally, 37 percent of the
population favors this type of policy (as reported in the 2014 PDK/Gallup poll2). Indicated
in the figure, Sangamon County residents are slightly less supportive of this type of
initiative with 26 percent reporting they “favor” this education policy, 67 percent report
they “oppose,” and seven percent report they either “don’t know” or refused to answer
the question.
African-American residents are more likely to favor both the idea of charter schools as
well as charter school vouchers. Forty-one percent of African-American residents favor
charter school vouchers compared to 24 percent of white residents.
Private school parents are significantly more likely to support charter school vouchers
than public school parents. Sixty-three percent of private school parents favor vouchers
compared to 20 percent of public school parents.
1
2
Data is available at http://valees.org/pdf/pdk_2012_gallup_poll.pdf.
Data is available at http://pdkpoll.pdkintl.org/#13.