AP posted a story ab…

AP posted a story about a school voucher poll. I don’t give too much weight to polls, but I want to mention this one, partly for the numbers, and partly for how it is being covered by AP.

62% of respondents said that, given full-tuition vouchers, they’d send their kids to a private school or one connected with a religious institution. Even with just half-tuition vouchers, 51% said they’d leave public school. Further, 59% thought a voucher program wouldn’t affect the achievement of public school students (hence, most would leave). And on the question of whether vouchers would increase overall student achievement in their community, the results were a half-and-half split.

None of this looks good for public schools, and puts vouchers in a generally good light. But there’s one other number that doesn’t seem to correlate. Support for voucher programs in general is down to 38% (from 46% last year). People seem to be saying that, yes, they would choose private or religious schools over public schools if it were voucher-supported, but they don’t support vouchers. I don’t know how the questions were worded exactly, but this is one reason I don’t like the reporting of polls much. How this question was asked could make all the difference.

And what’s the AP headline on this story, which has 2 results favoring vouchers, 1 that’s against them, and one that’s split?

Most Americans Oppose Vouchers, Poll Says

As one might see on a standardized test, a “more correct” headline would have been “Most Americans Would Use Vouchers in Private Schools, Polls Say“. But then, that would be fair.

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