This is the first in a series of posts about the responses to questions in the 2014 Metro Atlanta Speaks (MAS) survey. 2014 was the second year for this new, first of its kind regional survey that measures resident perceptions across a host of topic areas ranging from regional transportation to arts and culture to education.
When it comes to education, the most recent data from the survey suggest that residents, in most cases, feel better about their local schools (the ones “in their backyard”) than they do about schools in other places across the region. Even when area residents do NOT feel good about their local school district, they still don’t feel that positively about schools in the larger metro area.
Regional Perception of Public Education in Local District
“How would you rate public education in the school district in which you live? Would you say it is…”
The chart above shows that more than half of all 4,200 respondents in our 2014 survey rated local public education “good” or “excellent”, with only 16% assessing it as “poor”.
Now let’s dig deeper. For the first time this year, the survey was significant at the county level, and the data are particularly revealing in the case of education. As shown below, the highest percentages of positive responses came in the suburban counties where higher test scores, along with lesser challenges in many cases, are found. In three counties: Fayette, Cherokee, and Gwinnett, over 70% of respondents rated local schools either “good” or “excellent”. The responses are much different in the counties of DeKalb and Clayton, counties where accreditation issues lie in the recent past. There, only just over one-third of residents assess the local schools as “good” or excellent”, and over 1 in 5 respondents (compared to less than 1 in 10 for the ‘top three’ counties) rate their local schools as “poor”.
Perception by County of Local Public Education
“How would you rate public education in the school district in which you live? Would you say it is…”
When asked to assess public education in the region as a whole, respondents were much less positive than they were about their local schools (take a look back at that first chart above). A smaller share at 37% found education in this larger area “excellent” or “good” and a larger share (22%) ranked regional education–or education in school districts beyond their own–as “poor”.
Perception of Public Education across the Region as a Whole
“Thinking about the Metro Atlanta region, how would you rate public education in the area as a whole? Is it…””
At the county level, Fayette, Douglas, and Fulton have the largest shares of respondents rating “public education as a whole” as ‘poor’. The share of respondents with positive regional ratings in “lower ranking” local school districts, such as DeKalb and Clayton, are not appreciably higher than the levels reported in areas with higher-performing local school districts like Cherokee and Fayette.
Perception by County of Public Education in Metro Atlanta
“Thinking about the Metro Atlanta region, how would you rate public education in the area as a whole? Is it…”
Metro Atlanta Speaks 2014 was a survey that indicated, in the responses received to most of its 25 questions, that Atlantans are quite happy with their much of their living and working situations–with things like neighborhood quality, access to job training, and with the provision of culture, arts, and parks.
However, we have seen in this post that education is an outlier and residents are not as happy with it. The concerns are evident in the fairly negative assessments detailed above–and despite significant local support for the better performing local systems, perceptions of education in the area “further from home” are damaged.
For more information, please visit Metro Atlanta Speaks Webpage