A Vague Survey Question and How to Answer It

On the way to dinner tonight my phone rang and the car display didn’t show the number, so I answered. It was a survey company/organization of some sort conducting a brief survey related to the upcoming Hillsborough County Commission election. Now, I understand that questions are often engineered to try to elicit a specific response, but I could not discern whether this was one of those situations or not.

The basic question was, “Do you believe the Hillsborough County Public Schools are headed in the right direction?” I found that a surprisingly difficult question to answer.

I explained to the woman that is was, without any context, a poor question. It could be taken a number of ways:

1. Lots of public school money in Hillsborough County is, due to laws passed by the education-hating Republican-led legislature, being transferred to private for-profit companies contracted to run charter schools and to Christian Schools with virtually no oversight. (Hell, they can hire teachers who don’t even have a college degree.) So, that’s a direction our local public schools are headed. Hell no, that’s NOT the right direction.
2. Because of the ridiculous testing regimen imposed by our Republican legislature (which also transfers a ton of public education money to private for-profit testing companies), public school teachers have to teach to tests as opposed to teaching a curriculum they, as trained professionals, create and adapt based on the needs of their students. That too is a direction our public schools are heading, and hell no, that’s NOT the right direction.
3. Because of 1 and 2 above resulting in the transfer or significant amounts of my tax dollars to these private for-profit companies and religious institutions, the schools don’t have the resources and the teachers don’t get paid enough to deliver the kind of quality education they should. That is a direction our public schools are heading…and, you guessed it, hell no, that’s NOT the right direction.
4. On the other hand, do I think that teachers and administrators generally do a heroic job of making the most of the crumbs they are now given by our Republican legislature, and do the best job possible under the constraints they have? Absolutely. So that too is a direction the Hillsborough County Public Schools are heading, and that is exactly the right direction.

So here’s the confusing logic of the possible answers:[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”Do you believe the Hillsborough County Public Schools are headed in the right direction?”[/perfectpullquote]

1. Does a “Yes” mean I support either or all of 1,2, and 3 above as the being the right direction for our public schools, and infer that the real public schools are doing a bad job? (That’s not how I feel.)
2. Does a “Yes” mean I believe in 4, and think teachers and administrators are doing great, so more money can be transferred without harm? (Nope, don’t want anyone to infer we are on the right path with this transfer of money.)
3. Does a “Yes” mean that teachers and administrators are doing the best they can with what they have, and I support that and think no more funding is needed? (Yes, it most certainly does.)
4. Does a “No” mean I believe 1,2 and/or 3 above is the wrong direction and should be stopped? (That would be true.)
5. Does a “No” mean I don’t believe the real public school teachers and administrators aren’t doing as a good as possible giving the attempts by the legislature to de-fund and dismantle public education? (I certainly don’t believe that.)

I had no idea how I could give her an answer that reflects my belief that the Republican-held legislature and lots of local commissioners and school board members are working hard to de-fund public education and enrich their wealthy friends in the private sector, and that given those conditions, the teachers and administrators are doing yeoman’s duty in trying to educate our children.

Maybe, as I often do, I’m over thinking it, but I don’t want to give some politician the wrong idea. What do you all think?