…if the public is given accurate information about what is currently being spent on public schools, their support for increased spending and confidence that more spending will improve student learning both decline. And they find that knowing how much the average teacher earns lowers support among the general public for salary increases.
That’s from research by William Howell and Martin West, digested here.
Some details:
…The average per-pupil spending estimate from respondents to the 2008 Education Next/PEPG survey was $4,231, and the median response was just $2,000; but for these respondents, local average spending per pupil at the time exceeded $10,000. When told how much the local schools were spending, support for increased spending dropped by 10 percentage points, from 61 percent to a bare majority of 51 percent…
…As with per-pupil expenditures, the public significantly underestimates how much their states pay public school teachers. On average, Education Next/PEPG survey respondents underestimated average teacher salaries in their state by more than $14,000, nearly one-third of the actual average salaries of $47,000. When asked directly, 69 percent of the public supported increasing teacher salaries. African Americans and teachers appeared most enthusiastic about increasing teacher salaries, with roughly 9 out of 10 endorsing the idea. When provided with the facts, support among the general public decreased by 14 percent.
Even more interesting: teachers responded similarly to the correct information.
[Hat tip to Eric Lawrence.]
{ 2 comments }
Interesting. One wonders how might these results compare with spending in other areas of public policy? If people were actually told what was spent on defense, or roads, or local policing, would they also want to reduce spending over what they imagine to be the case?
Perhaps education is not at all peculiar in this respect.
I used to have some data from a national survey that asked about spending for foreign aid. The salient findings were that: (1) most Americans say the government is spending far too much on foreign aid; (2) asked to estimate how much the government is actually spending on foreign aid, most guess _way_ too high (not surprising in light of widespread innumeracy); (3) asked how much government _should_ be spending on foreign aid, most peg the desirable figure much lower than what they think the government is spending. That’s interesting, but the kicker is that most Americans’ answers to (3) are _way_ below what the government actually is spending. In other words, foreign aid spending is lower than people think it should be, but they think it’s higher than it should be.
Comments on this entry are closed.