2015 Ednext Poll On School Reform

Web Assignment I searched the term, “opinion polls” on google search engine, and located the http://educationnext.org/files/ednext_XVI_1_poll_fig09.jpg. This webpage gave numerous educational opinion poll results. The article that I selected is 2015 EdNext Poll on School Reform conducted on May 21 to June 8 2015 by the polling firm Knowledge Network (KN), a GIK company. This survey asked 4,083 participants their opinions pertaining to the academic emphasis in K-12 education. This survey was the first ever experimental inquiry that pertained to the following questions: the researchers asked a “random of half of our respondents to estimate (on a scale from 1 to 7) how much emphasis they think their local schools place on each of several subjects

This stratified sample consisted of adults 18 years and older, which oversampled the following subgroups of teachers (639), African Americans (661), and Hispanics (734). The margin of error for this poll results in 1.5% points for questions on which opinions are evenly split (Henderson, Peterson, & West, 2016). My interest is an emphasis on education. Therefore, I chose the graph depicting differences on how much local schools should emphasize and do emphasize. Their emphasis are on the following categories: reading, math, arts, history, science, character education, creativity, global warming, athletics, and bullying prevention. Additionally, the outcome of the survey indicated that “public thinks much more emphasis should be on reading and math than do teachers and to a lesser extent on parents. Secondly, the public says that math and reading should be give better than 1-point increment over the 5.2-point emphasis (on the 7-point scale). Thirdly, teachers think the emphasis needs to increase by only about half a point in reading and less in math. Also, parents would increase the emphasis in the two subjects by no more than two-thirds of a point. Fourth, parents and general public wants more attention focused on bullying prevent, but teachers think this matter only needs modestly more attention” (Henderson, Peterson, & West,

The graph established significant findings based on these results, which indicated teachers put more emphasis on art and creativity, instead of the core curriculum such as reading, math, science, and history. Also, the report revealed that bully prevention needs only modestly attention. In today’s society, with the technological advances in computers, cell phones, and other electronics that are utilized by school age children indicates that bully prevention is not the most prevalent in the school systems. In fact, within the K-12 there is a substantial increase in suicide resulting from bullying through technology. According to (Azim, Janapana, Rehmatullah, Shireen, & Temuri (2014), “Bullying” is a risk factor that is linked to suicidal ideation and attempts among school-age children and teenagers. Since youth suicide is an urgent and serious problem” (2014, p. 206). The statistics rates for this vulnerable population is “approximately 1 in 6 high school students has seriously considered suicide, and 1 in 12 has attempted it. Moreover, suicide rates among teens have been increasing for the last couple of years; from 6.3% in 2009, to 7.8% in 2011; and more youth suicides have been reported as a result of bullying” (Azim, Janapana, Rehmatullah, Shireen, & Temuri, 2014, p. 206). In additionally, the victims that are exposed to bullying by other classmates provoke