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What Grade Do Americans Give Their Educations?

What Grade Do Americans Give Their Educations?

Last week marked the 10th anniversary of the launch of the "charter school" initiative, but any celebration was dampened by an American Federation of Teachers' report criticizing the movement for not living up to its initial promise. The current climate of public opinion on education sees most American parents satisfied with the education that their children receive, but most Americans overall are somewhat dissatisfied with the quality of education in the United States as a whole.

What about their own educations? A recent Gallup poll asked Americans, including larger-than-usual samples of blacks and Hispanics, to rate their satisfaction with their education. The vast majority of Americans say they are satisfied with the education they received, though to a lesser degree than with many other aspects of their lives*. Educational satisfaction differs little by race or ethnic background. The strongest predictor of satisfaction with one's education is the amount of schooling received.

The June 2002 poll found 84% of Americans satisfied with the education they received, including 45% who are very satisfied. Only 16% said they were dissatisfied. While satisfaction with one's education is generally high, it is considerably lower than that found in other areas of Americans' lives, especially when examining the percentage who indicate they are very satisfied. By comparison, roughly seven in 10 are very satisfied with their family lives, six in 10 are very satisfied with their communities as places to live and their current housing, and 55% are very satisfied with their jobs.

While one might expect members of minority groups -- many of whom attend school in poorer school districts -- to be less satisfied with their education, that is generally not the case. The poll finds that roughly eight in 10 blacks and Hispanics are satisfied with the education they received -- only slightly less than the 87% of non-Hispanic whites who are satisfied. Men (87% satisfied) and women (83%) also differ little in their satisfaction with their education. The differences are even smaller between the percentages of each group that is very satisfied with the education it received.

Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to say they are dissatisfied with their education, but again by a small margin. Twenty-one percent of both blacks and Hispanics are dissatisfied with their education, compared to 13% of whites, 17% of women, and 13% of men.

The factor that is most strongly related to satisfaction with one's education is the amount of education received. Eighty-three percent of those with a post-graduate degree are very satisfied with their education. Roughly two in three Americans with a college degree (but not a post-graduate education) say they are very satisfied with their education. Among those who attended college but did not receive a degree, 40% are very satisfied with their education. And just one in three Americans with a high school education or less say they are very satisfied with their education, nearly as many as say they are dissatisfied (25%).

There is a relationship between household income and people's satisfaction with their education, but it is not nearly as pronounced as the relationship between educational level and satisfaction with education. Fifty-seven percent of those with incomes of $75,000 or greater say they are very satisfied with their education -- a percentage that drops to 51% among those with incomes between $50,000 and $75,000, 42% among those with incomes between $20,000 and $50,000 and just 38% among those with incomes below $20,000.

Key Points

Gallup poll results show that the higher level of education Americans receive, the more likely they are to be very satisfied with their education. According to a Census report released on July 18, the earnings gap between Americans with more education and those with less education has widened over the past three decades. In 1999, workers with advanced degrees were making an average of 2.6 times more money than those with high school degrees. In 1975, they were making only 1.8 times as much. Minorities have benefited from increased education at least as much as whites have. These Census figures support Gallup's findings that educational opportunities are vital to Americans' satisfaction with certain aspects of life, including satisfaction with the quality of their education itself.

*These results are based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected national sample of 1,360 adults, aged 18 and older, conducted June 3-9, 2002, including oversamples of 236 blacks and 263 Hispanics which are weighted to reflect their proportions in the population. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±3%. For results based on the samples of blacks and Hispanics, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling error is ±7%. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.


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