Poll Shows Americans Completely Misunderstand, But Are Nontheless Angry About, the Federal Education Budget

The National School Boards Association recently released the results of a new poll focused on federal education spending. I'm a big, big supporter of increased federal support for education. But--NSBA press release to the contrary--the poll results say very little that's useful or new. The release said:

As members of Congress prepare to head home for the Memorial Day Holiday, a national poll from the National School Boards Association finds a majority of likely voters believe that Congress is out of touch with the public’s expectations when it comes to funding federal education programs and want Congress to fulfill its funding commitment to schoolchildren. Seven in 10 likely voters (70 percent) say that Congress should restore funding for No Child Left Behind and special education programs in next year’s budget to the authorized levels.

As is always the case with polls, it's absolutely crucial to read the specific questions asked. Let's start with the contention that Congress is "out of touch with the public's expectations when it comes to funding federal education programs." Here are the actual questions and results:

If you had to guess, what PERCENTAGE of the FEDERAL budget would you say is spent on education programs for PUBLIC elementary, middle and high schools? [MEAN=20.06% ]

Regardless of what PERCENTAGE of the FEDERAL budget you THINK is spent on education programs for PUBLIC elementary, middle and high schools, please tell me what PERCENTAGE in your opinion should be spent? [MEAN=36.64%]

In other words, the average person thinks that one-fifth of the federal budget is spent on K-12 education, and that more than one-third of the federal budget should be spent on education.

The thing is, only two percent of the federal budget ($57 billion out of $2.7 trillion) is spent on K-12 and higher education combined. So all this poll really shows is that when it comes to the federal budget, the average American doesn't know their ear from their elbow.

The fact that people wish a third of the money went to education is meaningless. If you conducted a series of identical polls that substituted words like "national defense," "health care," "retirement security," "transportation," "scientific research," and "support for veterans" for "public education," do you think the sum of all the preferred percentages would add up to 100? Of course not. You can't ask questions like this in isolation; you have to give people a sense of the competing priorities, difficult tradeoffs, and limited resources that define the process of making a budget.

The survey also asked this question:

Congress authorized spending $42 billion dollars NEXT YEAR to fund TWO of the largest federal education programs that aid public schools across the country – the No Child Left Behind Act and Special Education. However in the current budget proposal, Congress is providing only $23 billion for these two programs—a little more than HALF of the $42 billion they originally authorized and promised. Hearing that, what, in your opinion should Congress do?

Restore the funding for these education programs back to their authorized and promised levels for next year. [70%]

OR

Keep the proposed spending cuts for these education programs in place for next year regardless of what was originally authorized and promised [19%]

DK/Refused [11%]

Again, I bow to no one in my unhappiness with Congress' insistence on passing huge yearly tax cuts for extremely rich people while refusing to give NCLB more money. But an authorization level is not the same thing as a "promise." It's a ceiling, a limit on the most Congress can spend on a program, not an iron-clad guarantee of how much it will spend. To conflate the two gives the game away.

As does asking if Congress should "restore...back" funding to authorized levels. The clear implication is that funding was actually at those levels at some point, only to be taken away, creating a need for restoration. This simply isn't true. While federal education funding is down slightly from last year and has been stagnant for the last several years (again, much to my dismay), overall funding levels are significantly higher than they were five years ago, or at any other time in the past.

Budgeting is a serious, difficult business. Even in the best of times--and I've seen them, having been an assistant state budget director during the go-go late 1990s--the demand for needed, worthwhile public spending far exceeds available resources. Setting priorities isn't easy, and it's not made easier by meaningless polls like these.