3/16/04 -- Parents are concerned about a lack of funding for public education, the National PTA reports. According to the results of a survey released Feb. 24, parents are more concerned about school budgets than safety, teacher pay, testing, or anything else.
An overwhelming majority of parents, 93 percent, said education will play a major role in their decision about which candidate to support in this presidential election year.
Sixty-one percent of respondents said a candidate's position on education is "very important," and 32 percent said it is "somewhat important."
When asked to identify the most important issues facing public education, 34 percent said funding. The next most-mentioned topic, quality, was cited by only 19 percent, followed by class size/overcrowding (9 percent), standards (8 percent), safety (8 percent), lack of discipline (8 percent), underpaid teachers (7 percent), shortage of teachers (6 percent), and lack of parent involvement (6 percent).
When given a list of five issues and asked to select the two "most pressing" issues, 55 percent of the public school parents polled chose funding.
Among the other issues, 40 percent rated teacher quality a pressing issue, followed by parent involvement (cited by 38 percent), class size (37 percent), and state-mandated testing (25 percent).
Eighty-five percent of parents believe the federal government should provide more funding for education. Those who said they "strongly support" more federal funding (58 percent) far outweighed those who said "somewhat support" (26 percent).
When asked whether the three levels of government provide enough funding for public schools, 68 percent said the federal government should provide more funding, 78 percent said state government should provide more, and 55 percent said local government should provide more. Forty-one percent said all three levels should provide more.
In response to school district budget cuts, parents are contributing more to their schools, and schools are becoming more dependent on fund raisers.
Seventy-nine percent of parents said they are being asked to fund items and needs that have traditionally been covered by school budgets, such as paper, cleaning supplies, transportation, technology, teacher salaries, curriculum materials, and art or music programs.
Thirty-nine percent are contributing more than $100 to their children's classrooms each year.