Standards

Poll: Most Teachers, But Not the Public, Are Aware of Common Core

By Erik W. Robelen — July 03, 2012 2 min read
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Nearly nine out of ten public school teachers are now aware of the Common Core State Standards, and most of them have a “very” or “somewhat” favorable impression, according to new polling data. Meanwhile, the general public is still mostly out of the loop about the new standards.

Sixty percent of U.S. voters say they have seen, read, or heard “nothing at all” about the new standards for English/language arts and mathematics in the past six months, a figure unchanged since an early poll in August of 2011. Another 20 percent replied “not much” to the question.

With regard to public school teachers, awareness continues to grow, which should come as little surprise given that states and districts have become more active in ramping up their implementation efforts. At the same time, favorability ratings among teachers have also climbed, with 68 percent saying they have either a “very” or “somewhat” favorable impression.

The survey was commissioned by Achieve, a nonprofit group that played a lead role in managing the development of the common-core standards. You can find a report and PowerPoint presentation on the results here.

Here’s some of the data. First, on teacher awareness, the survey asked: Thinking about the last six months, how much have you seen, read, or heard about these Common Core State Standards?

• A lot (65 percent)
• Some (22 percent)
• Not much (7 percent)
• Nothing at all (6 percent)

So, a combined total of 87 percent of the teachers surveyed said they had heard “a lot” or “some,” which compares with 68 percent when the same question was asked in August 2011.

Next, on teachers’ impressions: And, has what you have seen, read, or heard recently about the Common Core State Standards given you a favorable or unfavorable impression of the standards?

• Very favorable (24 percent)
• Somewhat favorable (44 percent)
• Somewhat unfavorable (13 percent)
• Very unfavorable (7 percent)

The combined 68 percent with a favorable impression compares with 59 percent offering that opinion in the August 2011 survey. (Since some people had no opinion, just 20 percent said they had a somewhat or very unfavorable impression.)

As for voters surveyed, 42 percent had a favorable impression and 28 percent unfavorable.

The survey was conducted May 6-10 by Public Opinion Strategies and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. One thousand registered voters and 500 K-12 public school teachers were polled.

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A version of this news article first appeared in the Curriculum Matters blog.