School choice is popular, but GOP must face down its image problem

When it comes to education, President Trump has declared his intention to aggressively promote school choice.

While his support for charter schooling and school vouchers has drawn the most attention, Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have also moved on other fronts. Trump has pushed to shrink the Education Department’s footprint via an executive order targeted at instances “where the Federal Government has unlawfully overstepped state and local control,” proposed more than $9 billion in cuts to the education budget, tempered Obama regulations targeting for-profit universities, and rescinded Obama’s civil rights directive stipulating expansive accommodations for transgender students.

{mosads}Reaction to Trump’s proposals has been predictably mixed. The New York Times editorial board declared that the budget drawback would “impose pain for pain’s sake,” and critics on the left and right lambasted the tax credit scholarship program for funneling public school funds into private schools and increasing the federal role in education, respectively.

As Trump presses forward with his education agenda and seeks to rally Republicans to his banner, an important question is how much support he can expect from the public. The public will undoubtedly support some Trump education policies — for instance, when it comes to school choice, the annual 2016 Education Next poll reported that 51 percent of the general public supports charter schools and just 28 percent oppose them. Support for this or that policy, however, may prove less significant than baseline trust in (or distrust of) Republican proposals on schooling.

Even blue California warms to school choice via @thehill https://t.co/BGlZCUvgp4 pic.twitter.com/mFgMRVCcWo

— PRI (@PacificResearch) May 4, 2017

Given that, how has the public tended to view Republicans and Democrats when it comes to schooling? To answer, we turned to the polls.

We searched various forms of the question “Which political party does a better job handling education issues?” using the online database of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, a respected repository of opinion survey results. We included the results of surveys that asked consistently about this topic for over a decade or more.

The results depicted a significant, sustained Democratic advantage when the public was asked which party it trusted with schools. Pew News Interest asked, “Which party could do a better job of improving our education?” and Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup asked, “In your opinion, which of the two major political parties is more interested in improving public education in this country — the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?” Combining the two sets of similar results painted a pretty clear picture.

In 1999, the Democrats had the largest lead at 23 percentage points. After 2000, when George W. Bush won the presidency and championed the No Child Left Behind Act, the gap steadily narrowed. It hovered between a 7 and 11 point Democratic advantage until 2008, when it inflated to 17 points during Barack Obama’s election. This surge in support moderated during Obama’s term, falling to a two-decade low of five percentage points in 2014, before bouncing back to 12 points in 2015 — the last year this question was asked by either poll.

“Trump and DeVos should prepare to fight for school choice” https://t.co/eAqoChHZLk pic.twitter.com/JgrLvcZGfG

— The Hill (@thehill) April 21, 2017

The Winston Group conducted the third poll that met our criteria, a survey that asked, “Which party do you have more confidence in to handle the issue of education, the Republican Party or the Democratic Party?” The Democrats also led every time the question was asked, and always by at least 7 points.

What’s the upshot? First, when it comes to schools, it’s clear that the public has consistently trusted the Democratic Party more than the Republican Party in recent decades. This means that Trump is likely to be working uphill when it comes to education.

Trump signs order directing Education to review where it “unlawfully overstepped state and local control”: https://t.co/1SfQ7S9SFD pic.twitter.com/3fMWB85lUD

— The Hill (@thehill) April 26, 2017

Second, this situation may change with time. School choice is relatively popular with the general public. If the public views the Democrats as opposing federal efforts to expand school choice, this may work in Trump’s favor  —and could potentially hurt Democrats on the issue.       

Finally, the Democratic advantage has moved in accord with presidential elections. Under Bush, the gap between Democrats and Republicans narrowed substantially. During Obama’s 2008 win, the Democratic lead skyrocketed. Only time will tell how Trump’s presidency may affect the public opinion of the parties on education.

Frederick M. Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the new book “Letters to a Young Education Reformer.” Kelsey Hamilton is a research assistant at AEI.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.