California’s voters have an improved view of public education in the state and want to increase the funds schools get, according to an annual PACE/USC Rossier School of Education poll.

Researchers noted that voters’ optimism regarding their local public schools has reached a high point since the poll began five years ago.

Twenty-three percent of Californians said their local public schools have “gotten better” over the past few years while 30 percent said they have “gotten worse.” When asked in 2012, only 14 percent said schools had gotten better and 45 percent said schools had gotten worse. In the 2015 poll, 17 percent said schools had “gotten better” and 34 percent said they had “gotten worse.”

The poll’s authors noted that the changes in Californians’ opinion about their schools come as recent national polling data have shown that the public’s views toward their local schools have remained relatively unchanged since 2000.

“Those changes (in California) are quite dramatic, and while not a stellar view of how things are going, but compared to how things were in the dark days of massive budget cuts and increasing class sizes, voters have a much rosier view of public schools in California and local public schools in particular,” Ben Tulchin, president and founder of Tulchin Research, said on a phone call with reporters. “There is still a long way to go but that is — you rarely see that kind of shift in opinion in public schools.”

Morgan Polikoff, associate professor of USC Rossier School of Education and a researcher behind the poll, said some reasons for the improved view of schools include the increase in funding since Proposition 30 and relatively less turmoil in the state over Common Core, testing and accountability, in large part because the state has not linked teacher evaluations to test scores. 

On the other hand, what voters don’t know might prop up those rosier views.

“Over last several years, California hasn’t had an accountability system statewide,” he said, so without the old API score, “it could be that schools are perceived as getting better because there is less information out there.”

When asked what California can do to improve perceptions of schools even more, Polikoff said: “Actually improve the schools. While voters want to spend more money on schools and teachers, they really see that reforming schools and improving teachers as inexplicably tied to that increased funding.” Accountability “could go a long way toward improving attitudes toward schools.”

The bipartisan poll was conducted by Tulchin Research, which is known for polling for Democratic candidates, and Moore Information, which is known for polling on behalf of Republican candidates.

Voters are also showing strong support for Proposition 55, a measure on the November statewide ballot that would extend for 12 years an income tax increase on individuals earning $250,000 or more per year to help boost education and healthcare funding. Sixty-nine percent of voters showed support for the measure. Seventy-seven percent of voters also said the state should be spending more on education.

“As you can see, voters feel there has been progress with schools and they don’t want to lose this source of funding since progress has been made over the last several years,” Tulchin said.

The poll found that Republicans in the state appear to be in favor of raising taxes to help improve schools, even though that voting block traditionally is against higher taxes. Sixty-two percent of Republicans responded as being in favor of spending more money to help schools. They are also split on Prop. 55, with 51 percent being in favor of approving it or leaning toward approving it, compared to 47 percent being opposed or leaning in opposition to it.

“It’s remarkable in a ballot measure that is going to cost more money for Republicans not to be widely opposed,” said Bob Moore, principal and founder of Moore Information.

But the poll found that the new money for schools needs to be paired with accountability; 96 percent said they believe public schools and districts should be held accountable for spending education dollars efficiently. Sixty-two percent of the voters said they believe increasing funding for schools and reforming operations are critical for improving public education.

When asked what is more important in improving schools, reforming operations outscored increased funding, 26 percent to 15 percent.

“Our results suggest that California voters see some improvements in their local schools,” Polikoff said. “What these results indicate is that voters want to keep funding schools to sustain these improvements. However, voters are also saying that money alone won’t solve our education challenges —accountability must be an important part of the improvement effort.”

The poll also found very low awareness among voters on the state’s school funding law, the Local Control Funding Formula, and a high level of support for increasing pay for teachers.

A new poll shows that California voters would support reauthorization of Proposition 30, a 2012 measure that raised taxes to support public education.

The survey by PACE/USC Rossier School of Education Poll shows 63 percent of voters favor extending at least one provision of Prop. 30 — the tax increase on high incomes or the sales tax hike or both. Only 28 percent of voters said both fiscal provisions should be allowed to expire, the poll showed.

Prop. 30 temporarily increased the state sales tax by a quarter cent and the personal income tax rate on people earning more than $250,000 a year to fund public education and other government programs. It expires at the end of 2016.

“Since the inception of this poll in 2012, we have identified valuable trends that not only reflect the opinions of the state’s voters but also influence policymakers in Sacramento,” said USC Rossier School Dean Karen Symms Gallagher. “The latest results indicate a growing confidence in our public school system as voters are clearly willing to provide greater financial support to education.”

Six in 10 voters said California should be spending more on schools, as opposed to 26 percent who said the state’s public schools have enough money, the poll showed.

Voters were less enthusiastic about proposed changes to Proposition 13, which sets limits on property taxes. Changing the rules on the taxation of business and commercial property would raise an estimated $6 billion to $10 billion per year, of which 40 percent would go to public schools. A slight majority of voters – 51 percent – said they would support changes to Prop. 13, as compared with 39 percent who would oppose it.

California voters have become less pessimistic about the state of their public schools. Between 2012, when the question was first asked, and now, the percentage of voters who say the state’s public schools have gotten better more than doubled, to 17 percent from 7 percent. During that same time period, the percentage of voters who said public schools were getting worse declined, to 39 percent from 57 percent.

Thirty-six percent of voters said public schools had stayed the same.

Among the poll’s other findings:

• Only 17 percent of California voters said their neighborhood public schools had gotten better, but that was up from 11 percent in 2012. Thirty-four percent of voters said their local public schools had gotten worse, down from 45 percent in 2012.
• Sixty-five percent of California voters said they have never heard or read about the Local Control Funding Formula, or LCFF, Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2013 reform under which billions of dollars have been funneled to school districts to directly help English learners, foster children and students from low-income families. An additional 21 percent said they had not heard or read much about it, the poll showed.
• A plurality of voters said they approved of the job Gov. Brown is doing on education, with 45 percent who approve as compared with 38 percent who disapprove — the highest approval rating since the PACE/USC Rossier Poll first asked this question in 2013.
• Forty-six percent of voters said they approve of the job President Obama was doing on U.S. education issues, as compared with 41 percent who disapprove.
• Voters continue to give the state’s public schools average grades, although fewer voters believe schools are failing. The largest percentage of Californians (43 percent) gave their state’s schools a grade of “C.” And 32 percent of voters graded them a “D” or “F,” down from 42 percent in 2012. 

The PACE/USC Rossier School of Education Poll was conducted August 3-22, 2015 by polling firms MFour Mobile Research and Tulchin Research and surveyed 2,411 registered California voters. The poll was conducted online and allowed respondents to complete the survey on a desktop or laptop computer, tablet or smartphone. The poll was conducted in English and Spanish. The margin of error for the overall sample was +/- 2.9 percentage points.