Janita Poe begins her article, “Discipline, moral values needed in schools, poll says” (April 11), by declaring, “. . .most Americans think the country’s public schools are in a shambles. . ..” I must assume that Poe based this conclusion on statistics other than those provided in the results of the national survey on education, conducted by the American Association of School Administrators.
The statistics derived from that survey reveal that “most Americans” definitively do not believe that the public schools are “in a shambles.” Indeed, 52 percent (I think that means “most Americans”) of those polled believe the public schools deserve either a grade of “A” or “B.” That means the majority believe public education in this country is either excellent or good.
I am hard pressed to understand how she could construe those marks as indicating Americans believe public schools are in shambles. The disparity between Poe’s analysis and the evidence she provides is accentuated by the fact that only 9 percent of those polled would give public education a “D” or “F” grade. The facts indicate, therefore, that very few people think the public schools have failed.
This does not mean that public education is without problems. But those problems are not inherent in the educational system nor have they been created by the educators. They are produced by society as a whole. No improvement of these problems can be achieved through distorted reporting.
