California Teachers Rate the Public Schools

Teachers are pretty sanguine about the overall quality of education in public schools both in the nation and in California today. More than three out of five teachers each rate the nation's and California public schools as excellent or good. However, more than a third rate California's public schools either fair or poor (compared to 26% for the nation's schools).

The emergency-credentialed teachers are not as satisfied with the schools as their credentialed counterparts are -- just about half (52%) of the state's emergency-credentialed teachers say the schools are good, while almost half (45%) say fair or poor, compared to more than three out of five (62%) credentialed teachers rating the schools good, 35% fair or poor.

And many teachers -- credentialed or not -- give credit to themselves as to why the conditions in the schools are good. Those teachers in the field more than 16 years give themselves a lot of credit (60%); however, those teaching between one and five years give themselves some credit (47%), while also crediting school administrators (13%) and the state government (12%).

Blame, teachers feel, is more evenly distributed among state government (23%), parents (20%) and school administrators (11%). Teachers do not blame themselves.

Quality of Education

Although teachers are saying schools have gotten better and their local public schools are good, there is still a small minority that are pessimistic about public school education. Only a plurality of teachers (45%) say the overall quality of public school education has gotten better over the last ten years, with a quarter saying worse and a quarter saying it has remained the same.

High school teachers are less satisfied with the school system -- 35% say schools have gotten better, but 33% say worse and 28% the same, compared to 52% of elementary school teachers who say quality of public school education has gotten better, 20% worse and 21% say it has remained the same. Middle school teachers are very similar to overall teacher results.

When rating their own local public schools, 33% say excellent and 47% say good, only 4% say poor.

The most important problem facing public schools in their district today is budget cuts (23%), followed by classrooms being too large (16%), parents not involved in homework (15%) and children not fluent in English (11%). Budget cuts is mentioned by all groups as the most important problem (newer teachers -- those teaching 5 years or less; more experienced teachers -- those teaching more than 15 years; and teachers from all levels -- elementary, middle and high school). Surprisingly, crime does not come up very high on the teachers' list of problems (while it is high on the students' list when they were surveyed in a separate Times poll -- crime is the only problem that is in double digits among students, while no other problem comes close.)

Spending Money

Interestingly, teachers are virtually split as to whether schools have enough money but that it should be put to better use, or that schools need more money to improve the quality of the state's school system. The newer teachers think the money could be spent more wisely (51%), while almost half of the more experienced teachers think the schools need more money. Middle and high school teachers think the schools need more money, while elementary school teachers are slightly more inclined to think the opposite.

Aspects of the Public School System

The poll asked the teachers to rate six aspects of the state's public school system (teacher quality, condition of facilities, preparing students for jobs for the next century, curriculum offered, math programs offered and whether equipment and technology are up-to-date). They were to rate each one from above average to below average.

Not surprisingly, they gave themselves high marks on teacher quality -- 70% of the teachers gave the quality of teachers an above average score, 26% said average and just 1% said below average. Although the newer teachers gave teachers a high rating on the quality attribute, their scores were significantly lower than the more experienced teachers (59% vs. 68% for those teaching 6-15 years and 74% for those teaching more than 15 years).

Next, about half (48%) of those surveyed felt the curriculum offered is above average, 42% average and about one in ten (9%) think below average. Half of the credentialed teachers say the curriculum offered is above average, 40% average, 9% below average. The emergency-credentialed teachers are tougher in their assessment of the curriculum -- 49% say the curriculum is just average. Thirty-eight percent say it is above average, while 12% say it is below average.