Bluegrass Blues

Campus Report ^ | September 10, 2009 | Sarah Carlsruh

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Bluegrass Blues

by: Sarah Carlsruh, September 10, 2009

It turns out that not many parents in the Bluegrass state want their children to attend public school. Paul DiPerna, author of School Choice Survey in the State: Kentucky’s Opinion on K-12 Education and School Choice, found that people are not happy with the current public school system.

This August 2009 study is of Kentucky voters’ opinions on their state’s school system. Strategic Vision, a public relations agency, conducted this survey by making live phone calls to a random sample of 1,200 likely Kentucky voters. Its screening questions were such as to exclude people who had not voted in 2008 or did not intend to vote in 2010.

Strategic vision asked, “How would you rate Kentucky’s public school system?” Over half the respondents chose “poor” or “fair,” with quite a few more undecided. On the other hand, a mere 23% ranked their public school system as good or better.

The same survey was conducted in eleven other states and Kentucky’s responses ranked third to last. Perhaps related, the study’s very first question asked respondents to name a term that “best described their impression of Kentucky, and the most frequently used term was “depressed.”

This survey’s purpose is to show what Kentuckians think about “how best to provide a quality public education to all Kentucky children.” It shows that where Kentuckians send their children to school and where they feel their children will get that quality education are hardly one and the same. “There is a disconnect between parental school preferences (expressed in this survey) and actual school enrollments.” It turns out that “Thirteen percent of Kentucky parents said they would choose a regular public school for their child.” DiPerna states, “approximately ninety-one percent of Kentucky’s K-12 students attend regular public schools.” ....