What Does Average Joe Know?

Focusing on education policy both in my job and as a student, I think that I understand the party lines of the punditry and interest groups better than the opinions of the general public. It's (sadly) so much simpler to follow news articles and blogged arguments than talk to the man on the street about the latest goings on at the Department of Ed.

That's why I found the Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of The Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools so fascinating. The majority (59%) of survey respondents say they know "Very Little" or "Nothing At All" about NCLB. Interestingly, this statistic drops only slightly among public school parents (54%. NB: According to the methodology, this doesn't appear to be statistically significant). Finally, while the percent of respondents who report they "Don't know enough to say" how they feel about the law has fallen considerably over the past 2 years (from 69% in 2003 to 45% today), I think we can safely surmise that a large portion of "typical Americans" still are relatively uninformed about the policy that drives so much change in our schools.

Since education is generally considered a high-priority domestic policy concern, I wonder what this says about the public's policy knowledge in general? And by these numbers, a not-insignificant portion of people say they know "very little or nothing" about the law but still manage to have an opinion about it. Interesting stuff.

PS. For those in need of a pundit fix: brief commentaries on the data from Rick Hess, Richard Riley, and others.