You know that we like to throw data at you… LOTS of data! Telling stories with data is important to help us understand critical issues that affect our communities. But how residents perceive these issues is critical as well. So, over the next few months, we will take an in-depth look at this year’s Metro Atlanta Speaks Survey. Each post will explore an issue in-depth, showing how residents’ perceptions about critical issues facing the region change according to geography, race, age, educational attainment or income.
Today, we will look at public education in metro Atlanta. Respondents were asked to rate “Public Education in the District Where you Live” and “Public Education in the Metro Area As a Whole” as “Excellent/Good”, “Fair/Poor”, or “DK”. These two questions forced the respondents to think both about their perceptions of the quality of education in their local school district as well as the quality of public education metro-wide. And the differences between the two are fascinating – people are more optimistic about education in their local districts, but not in the metro area as a whole.
As the charts below indicate, a majority of people (53%) feel that public education was “excellent/good” in their OWN district, but when rating public education overall in the metro, that percentage fell to 35 percent.
Delving a little bit deeper, we are going to take a look the results per county. In addition to asking what county the respondents are from, we also asked their age, race, education level, whether or not they have kids, and their income to identify how Demographics and Educational Attainment play a role in the results.
Rating Public Education in the District Where You Live
By County:
In most counties, a majority of respondents believe public education is “excellent” or “good” in their own school districts. Clayton, DeKalb and Fulton are the only three (of 13) that have a larger share of respondents who believe education is “fair” or “poor” in their respective districts.
By Demographics and Educational Attainment:
Whites are more likely to rate their local school district as “Excellent” or “Good” at 58% followed by Latinos at 51%. Blacks are least likely to rate their school district as “Excellent” or “Good” at 48%.
Well-educated respondents are more likely to rate their local school district as “excellent” or “good”, although there is not a significant difference among the different educational levels.
In general, older age cohorts are more positive about the local school district than are the younger cohorts. 45-54 year cohorts believe education in their district is “excellent” or “good” at 60% whereas only 43% of the 25-34 year cohort believe this.
Rating Public Education in Metro Atlanta as a Whole
By County:
All counties have a larger share of respondents who feel that public education in metro Atlanta as a whole is “fair” or “poor”. While most are satisfied with their own districts, the outlook on the entire area is much less positive.
By Demographics or Educational Attainment:
Latinos are more positive about the state of public education in metro Atlanta with 47% followed by Blacks with 37%. Whites are the least likely at 32%.
Well-educated respondents are the least positive about the state of public education in metro Atlanta. Only 30% of residents with a Bachelor’s degree feel that education is “excellent” or “good”, whereas 40% of residents with a HS Diploma and 41% of people with less than a HS diploma feel that it is “good” or “excellent”.
There aren’t any major differences among age groups in the perception of public education across metro Atlanta- a majority across each age group believe public education is “fair” or “poor” across metro Atlanta.
Do perceptions match reality?
For the most part, yes. As the chart below shows, counties that rated their own school district poorly have some of the worst results, based on 3rd grade CRCT scores from 2014.
Stay tuned for more posts about Metro Atlanta Speaks! Please visit our previous blog post to see the full Metro Atlanta Speaks Snapshot.