Voters Like Schools Despite Planned Overhaul

By Susan Haigh

Associated Press

HARTFORD — The vast majority of voters, from the cities to rural towns, give high marks to Connecticut’s public schools and teachers, even though Governor Dannel P. Malloy and the General Assembly are currently considering a major overhaul of the system.

A poll released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University shows 60 percent of registered voters rate the quality of the state’s public schools as fairly good, while 17 percent say they are very good. The numbers are similar when broken down by voters living in cities, the suburbs and rural areas.

Voters especially like their local schools.

The telephone survey of 1,622 registered voters shows 41 percent of the participants believe the public school in their community is very good, while 44 percent said it is fairly good. When broken down by areas of Connecticut, 21 percent of urban voters said their school is very good, compared to 45 percent of suburban voters and 52 percent of rural voters.

Malloy, a Democrat, has made education a key priority for this year’s short legislative session. He has held public meetings across the state to discuss his proposal, which targets more funding and other assistance to needy districts, and expands access to early childhood education.

One of the most controversial aspects of Malloy’s plan calls for changing how teachers are evaluated, requiring student learning to be a major portion of an evaluation. He also wants to change teacher tenure laws and require tenure to be earned based on performance and not just time on the job. Malloy’s plan also allows districts to fire a teacher for ineffectiveness, not just incompetence.

While most voters — 66 percent —said they have a favorable opinion of Connecticut’s public school teachers, compared to 12 percent with an unfavorable opinion, they support making it easier to fire teachers and to reward outstanding teachers with additional pay. Fifty-four percent support Malloy’s plan to revamp teacher tenure, while 35 percent said it’s a bad idea. Among union households, 47 percent support the governor’s proposal while 41 percent oppose it.

When asked their opinion of the teacher unions, only 27 percent of voters view them favorably, while 32 percent said they have an unfavorable opinion. Thirty-nine percent said they hadn’t heard enough to form an opinion.

Malloy’s 163-page education bill is still being considered by the General Assembly. It has yet to be voted on by the legislature’s Education Committee and closed-door negotiations with lawmakers are continuing.

Despite supporting certain aspects of the bill, 36 percent of registered voters approve of the way the governor is handling education, while 41 percent disapprove. Forty-four percent approve of the way Malloy is handling his job overall, compared with 45 percent who disapprove and 11 percent who don’t know or didn’t answer.

The survey was conducted from March 14 to 19. Live interviewers called both landlines and cellphones. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.