Learn more about how MSAD #46 and SAD #4 are collaborating to design an innovative school that integrates career and technical education, higher education, and traditional high school education on our Regional Comprehensive High School Project page.

The following excerpt comes from the Executive Summary of the 2017 PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools

“The three R’s alone don’t cut it anymore: Americans overwhelmingly want schools to do more than educate students in academic subjects. According to the 2017 PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, they also want schools to help position students for their working lives after school. That means both direct career preparation and efforts to develop students’ interpersonal skills.

When judging school quality, the public gives much more weight to students’ job preparation and interpersonal development than to their standardized test scores, the poll shows. That said, though, Americans do still value traditional academic preparation, especially opportunities for advanced academic studies.

As in past years, the 2017 poll shows little public support for using public money to send children to private schools. The more Americans know about how voucher programs work, the less likely they are to support them or to say they’d participate in them.

These and other results suggest that some of the most prominent ideas that dominate current policy debates — from supporting vouchers to doubling down on high-stakes tests to cutting federal education funding — are out of step with parents’ main concern: They want their children prepared for life after they complete high school.

The PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools is the most trusted source of public opinion data about K-12 education because of its rigor, its depth, and its commitment to capturing all voices and viewpoints. This year, as always, PDK has taken great care to frame poll questions as objectively as possible and to share the full and unvarnished results. Rather than offering a partial or restricted view of the data, we are committed to allowing the public to speak for itself.

The 2017 PDK survey is based on a random, representative, 50-state sample of 1,588 adults interviewed by cell or landline telephone, in English or Spanish, in May 2017. For the first time, this year’s study also includes a pair of statewide samples — focusing on Georgia and New York — that we cover in separate reports. Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., produced this year’s poll.”