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We like our neighborhood schools more than we like everyone else's schools. Secretary Duncan says that's because we don't know how bad our neighborhood schools are! posted by Jason Ohler |
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Bad Schools Syndrome
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In an age of rhetoric about education, here is a fact: parents consistenly rate their own neighborhood school more positively than they rate schools in general in the U.S. - and Phi Delta Kappan and Gallup have the numbers to prove it.
Here is one factoid from a recent PDK/Gallup poll: Fifty-one percent of respondents said they would give the public schools in their neighborhood a grade or A or B, but only 19 percent would give public schools in the nation A or B. How do we account for this discrepancy? Gerald Bracey, long time researcher in the area of U.S. education, suggests a simple answer: we are overwhelmed through the media with bad news about education. It's not unlike the Mean World Syndrome posited by media researcher Gerbner, who said that people in general saw the world as being a much worse place than it actually was because of the barrage of bad news coming from the media.
Arne Duncan's response to the PDK/Gallup poll? Parents don't realize how bad their schools are!
For more information, read an article written by Stephen Krashen and myself in Substance News.
(Image appears through a clipart.com subscription.)
