NJ Education Report

Joseph Spector at the Democrat & Chronicle analyzes some New York opt-out numbers based on a poll from Siena College.

By a 62 percent to 33 percent margin, upstate voters backed the opt outs; it was 52 percent to 40 percent in the suburbs.
But the sentiment was flipped in New York City: by a 57 percent to 38 percent margin, voters thought the opt outs were wrong.

The split isn’t just between upstate vs. downstate and suburban v. urban voters, butalso  between whites v. blacks, Latinos, and Jews:

“Downstate suburbanites think parents were right [to refuse tests] by a 12-point margin, while upstaters thought parents were right by a nearly two-to-one margin,” Siena College poll spokesman Steven Greenberg said, “but New York City voters thought parents were wrong by a 57-38 percent margin. A majority of whites thought parents were right, while majorities of blacks, Latinos and Jews thought they were wrong.”

Also, “By a 59 percent to 36 percent margin, voters said they support allowing school districts to dismiss teachers that have been rated as ineffective for two years in a row.”