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Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Boomer with Attitude / News Observer didn't mention 48 percent in poll think CMS sucks
Posted By John Grooms on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 11:24 AM
The Observer has a very interesting front-page story, written by Eric Frazier, on the results of a Knight Foundation poll of 26 U.S. cities, including Charlotte. The poll, taken to determine “what people love about” their communities, asked residents how they feel about a wide array of topics. At least as interesting as the results is the way the Observer reported the story. I’m not saying the daily sugarcoated Charlotte’s results in its reporting — they do point out some things residents are unhappy about, notably highways and community leaders — but let’s just say the article was less than forthcoming in places, and was padded with smiley-face quotes from shiny, happy residents.
What struck me was the following passage in the article: “The study found that only 24 percent of respondents in the Charlotte region gave high marks to the quality of public schools. That, however, was up from 17 percent the year before.” Man, talk about trying to put lipstick on a pig. “We’re up from 17 percent approval to 24 percent. Woo-hooo!” It was also interesting that Frazier’s story didn’t give detailed results, just a brief sidebar with three positive and three negative findings. I tracked down the full results, which include the disturbing fact that 48 percent of respondents gave local K-12 public schools a low-to-medium grade, with 28 percent giving a medium-to-high grade. Those results put Charlotte residents’ views of their public school system at the midway point nationally, with 13 cities in the poll rating higher and 12 rating lower.
You can access the results of the poll here (on the right side, you can click to access a pdf of each city’s results).
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