Early Results - Online Education More than two thirds of American parents would be willing to have their children take some of their high school courses over the Internet, a new Education Next-PEPG poll shows. Findings from a new poll from Education Next and the Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) at Harvard University also show that, in most instances, the American public favors public funding for online courses that high school students take for credit over the internet. The breadth of their support, however, depends on the purpose of the online education. A majority favor funding for high schools offering advanced courses for students online and for high schools that offer rural students a broader range of courses online. A plurality support funding online classes that help dropouts gain credits. However, only about one in four support funding for online courses offered to homeschooled students, with the plurality of respondents opposing the idea outright. These findings are part of a larger study on public attitudes about education conducted by William G. Howell, Martin R. West, and Paul E. Peterson, under the auspices of Education Next and PEPG. The complete findings from the poll will be released in the fall 2008 issue of Education Next. The poll questions and results on online education are presented here. Parents and Online Education Each participant who had one or more children under 18 years old living in their household was asked the following question: Would you be willing to have a child of yours go through high school taking some academic courses over the internet?
The Public and Online Education Each participant, regardless of parental status, was asked one of the following four questions. The questions were randomly assigned, and distributed evenly, so that each question was asked of one quarter of those polled. A. Rather than send them to a school, some parents prefer to educate their high school children at home. Do you favor or oppose public funding for courses that these students take for credit online over the internet?
B. High school students in some rural communities have access to only a limited number of course offerings in their public schools. Do you favor or oppose public funding for courses that these students take for credit online over the internet?
C. Some high schools offer advanced courses for which students may be able to receive college credit. Do you favor or oppose public funding for such courses that students take online over the internet?
D. A variety of education programs are currently available to children who drop out of high school. Do you favor or oppose public funding for courses that these students take for credit online over the internet?
This survey, sponsored by Education Next and the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University, was conducted by the polling firm Knowledge Networks (KN) between February 16 and March 15, 2008. KN maintains a nationally representative panel of adults, obtained via list-assisted random digit dialing sampling techniques, who agree to participate in a limited number of online surveys. Because KN offers members of its panel free Internet access and a WebTV device that connects to a telephone and television, the sample is not limited to current computer owners or users with Internet access. When recruiting for the panel, KN sends out an advance mailing and follows up with at least 15 dial attempts. The panel, then, is updated quarterly. Detailed information about the maintenance of the KN panel, the protocols used to administer surveys, and the comparability of online and telephone surveys is available online (www.knowledgenetworks.com/quality/). The main findings from the Education Next–PEPG survey reported in this essay are based on a nationally representative stratified sample of 2,500 adults (age 18 years and older) and an over-sample of 700 public school teachers. The sample consists of 2,546 non-Hispanic whites, 250 non-Hispanic blacks, and 239 Hispanics. We use poststratification population weights to adjust for survey nonresponse as well as for the oversampling of teachers. These weights ensure that the observed demographic characteristics of the final sample match the known characteristics of the national adult population. In general, survey responses based on larger numbers of observations are more precise, that is, less prone to sampling variance, than those made across groups with fewer numbers of observations. As a consequence, answers attributed to the national population are more precisely estimated than are those attributed to subgroups. With 3,200 total respondents, the margin of error for responses given by the full sample in the Education Next–PEPG survey is roughly 1 percentage point. On many items, we conducted experiments to examine the effect of variations in the way questions are posed. Except where noted, the figures present separately the results for the different experimental conditions. To conduct the spending experiment, we matched we matched survey respondents to school districts using either census blocks or zip codes. When we relied on zip codes, we could not match some respondents to a unique school district. For such respondents we calculated the average per-pupil spending levels for each district that served the relevant zip code, weighted by districts’ population sizes. Teacher salary data, by contrast, are only available at the state level. We were able to match all survey respondents to the states in which they resided. Data on per-pupil spending come from the National Center for Educational Statistics Common Core of Data’s “Local Education Agency Finance Survey.” Data on teacher salaries come from the American Federation of Teachers publication, “Survey and Analysis of Teacher Salary Trends 2005.” Both sources cover the 2004–05 academic year, the latest for which this information is available. Percentages do not always add precisely to 100 as a result of rounding to the nearest percentage point |
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