Category: Our Work

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Comparing The Republican And Democrat Education Platforms

With the release of the Democratic Party’s 2024 platform for the start of their convention today, this week we take a look at how the Democrats’ platform compares with the Republicans’ on education.

The Democratic Platform: Education comes as part of the third chapter, “Lowering Costs;” the section addresses positions spanning through the education system from pre-K to post-secondary. Among the priorities are free, universal preschool for four year-olds; more affordable post- secondary education, including investments in career and technical education, free trade school and community college, and expanded Pell Grants; and increased investments in teachers.

“Help students learn.” The platform highlights actions the Biden administration took in the wake of the pandemic through the passage of the American Rescue Plan. It then highlights the Biden administration’s support of approaches that are “proven to help students learn,” including a longer school day and year; efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism; tutoring; literacy programs; and “helping schools to lift student achievement, rather than punishing them based on state standardized tests.”

Left undefined was how student achievement would be measured to indicate if improvements could be seen. Though the document expresses support for measures that help students learn, how can we know that the learning loss as a result of Covid-19 is being effectively addressed in the absence of standardized testing data?

The Republican Platform: The full 2024 Republican Party Platform was adopted at the Republican National Convention last month. Chapter 7, “Cultivate Great K-12 Schools Leading to Great Jobs and Great Lives for Young People,” outlines the platform as it pertains to education.

The chapter lists nine aspirations for education under Republican leadership: “Great Principals and Great Teachers,” which touches on schools focusing on “Excellence and Parental Rights” as well as ending teacher tenure in favor of merit pay; “Universal School Choice”; “Prepare Students for Jobs and Careers”; “Safe, Secure, and Drug-Free Schools”; “Restore Parental Rights”; Knowledge and Skills, Not CRT and Gender Indoctrination”; “Promote Love of Country with Authentic Civics Education”; “Freedom to Pray”; and “Return Education to the States.”

Republicans focus on social issues. A major focus of the K-12 education platform is on social issues, including “expos[ing] politicized education models” in favor of career training programs, and “defund[ing] schools that engage in inappropriate political indoctrination of our children using Federal Taxpayer Dollars.” One of the twenty points included in the preamble of the platform is to “cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.”

Missing from the Republican document is any mention of improving student achievement or overcoming the learning loss students suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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A 25 Year Look At Education Issue Handling

Going into an election, one of the important metrics to look at is which party voters have more confidence in to handle issues that are important to them. Data from the latest survey for Winning the Issues (July 23-25) sheds light on which party voters have more confidence in to handle the issue of education, with trending Winning the Issues data allowing us to see voters’ responses in the context of the past. Looking at the long-term and recent past, two conclusions emerge.

1.) Over the last 25 years, Republicans have tied or beat Democrats in education issue handling only three times: February 2001 (+5 Republican Party), January 2002 (even), and April 2022 (even). No Child Left Behind was signed into law on January 8, 2002; the January 2002 survey fielded from the 21st to the 24th.

2.) Recently, the gap in education issue handling has been growing in Democrats’ favor, although not to the same extent seen in the late 2000s. Currently, education issue handling stands at +15 Democratic Party (36-51 Republican Party-Democratic Party), but the margins were as high as the mid-20s and 30s for Democrats at points in 2007-2009. Independents currently prefer Democrats on education 30-47, while parents prefer Democrats 32-50.

In the month prior, voters preferred Democrats by a margin of 10 (37-47). Independents were slightly less strong in their preference for Democrats (26-44), as were parents (39-44). Democrats went from 83% preferring their own party (7-83) to 91% preferring their own party (3-91).

As preference for Democrats on education appears to be growing, it remains to be seen if Republicans can get the policy discussion back to significantly improving student outcomes.

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Universal School Choice And International Standing

The full 2024 Republican Party Platform was released and adopted earlier this month at the 2024 Republican National Convention. The platform devotes a chapter to education (“Cultivate Great K-12 Schools Leading to Great Jobs and Great Lives for Young People”), which focuses on issues like parental rights, career preparation, and a call for universal school choice.

The natural next question is what impact voters think universal school choice would have on K-12 education. Data from the latest survey for Winning the Issues (July 23-25), shows that, while voters believe universal school choice will improve educational outcomes for our K-12 students, it a plurality rather than a majority (43-29 believe-do not believe). Parents come closer to a majority (47-30), compared to Democrats (41-27) and especially independents (36-30). Republicans have the highest level of belief, but even then it is only one in two (50-30) for this plank of the party’s educational platform.

Voters were also asked to react to a second statement on education, this one adapted from a speech given at the convention: “In 2016, many people began to doubt the promise of America. … Our standing on the world stage was weak at best. … Our educational system was broken, ranked 30th in the world.”

Overall, 82% believed that the US education system is 30th in the world and that we need to take steps to increase our standing and not fall behind other countries (82-9). This statement had strong, bipartisan levels of belief (84-10 among Republicans; 81-8 among independents; 82-9 among Democrats), and a high level of belief among parents (79-12).

Clearly, voters understand that the US has improvements it could make when it comes to education.

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The Value Of America’s Alliances

Last week was NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) week in Washington, as the alliance celebrated its 75th anniversary and welcomed the soon-to-be new Secretary General, former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Alliances are receiving a heightened level of attention as they relate to the conflict in Ukraine. Former President Trump and others have indicated they are open to changes with our alliances and pressing allies to pay more for security. From our research for Winning the Issues (June 14-16, 1000 registered voters), we explored foreign policy topics and how voters perceive the value of our alliances.

Conflicting beliefs in foreign policy: Seven out of ten voters believe that peace, prosperity and security are products of American leadership and sacrifice (70-16 believe-do not believe) with this belief consistent across party (75-14 among Republicans, 65-20 among independents, 70-15 among Democrats). However, there is also concern that the US has become overstretched. Two- thirds of the electorate believes that the US is overstretched with funding and providing military weapons assistance for international conflicts. We must focus on rebuilding our country (63-21). Republicans (72-14) and conservative Republicans believe this (75-14) at a high level, but this is also the case among independents (63-20) and Democrats (53-28).

With majorities of the electorate believing both statements, this outlook indicates a conflict of foreign policy beliefs. For example, 60% of conservative Republicans believe both statements — that peace, prosperity and security are products of American leadership and sacrifice (79% believing) and that the US is overstretched (75% believing).

Importance of alliances: Alliances are seen as important (91-6 important-not important) but with a generational difference among Republicans on the scale of importance. Republicans over age 45 view the alliances that the US has with other countries as being very important (64%) rather than somewhat important (27%), while among Republicans 18-44, there is a much a larger percentage viewing them as only somewhat important (42%) rather than very important (49%).

Alliances as effective peace-keepers: Although alliances are seen as important, their value as effective peace-keepers is less clear. A majority of the country (54%) believes alliances like NATO have kept the peace since World War II (54-27 believe-do not believe). On this question, conservative Republicans are split 41-41, with Republicans overall (45-37) tending to believe this but with belief less than 50%. In contrast, Democrats (67-17) believe this more than Republicans (45-37) and independents (50-29).

NATO has helped keep the peace since World War II, but this current belief system indicates that it is time for a redefinition of the value proposition of our global alliances in the modern context.

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Roll Call: The Political System Is Blinking Red

The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the state of political discourse and rhetoric in the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

The political discourse in this country has been driven by a focus on anger and grievance as a means to get and sustain attention and “eyeballs.” This focus has become the central element of political campaigns, and the media has adopted it as well. The impact of constant negative speech and negative news coverage is reflected in the country’s attitude toward the direction of the country. 

In the Real Clear Politics average, you have to go back to 2009 to even find parity between voters who thought the country was headed in the right direction and those who thought it was on the wrong track. That is a decade and a half. Today, the RCP average is 23 percent right direction and 67 percent wrong track. 

Read the full piece here.

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Roll Call: The state of Joe Biden: Hope isn’t a strategy

The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the impacts of Joe Biden’s June 27 debate performance:

[T]he public is still processing what they saw, which contradicted what the White House and many Democrats have been asserting for months. The president is fine, they’ve been telling us. Move along. Nothing to see here. 

But their efforts to make the race all about Trump have clearly been compromised, with Biden’s poor performance now becoming a major factor in the political equation. Voters are just beginning to work through how this will impact their ballot preference. 

Read the full piece here.

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Deficit Claims From The Presidential Debate

Democrats are in full-scale panic after last week’s disastrous debate. Subsequent coverage has focused on the President’s performance, but today we are addressing one of the debate statements about the deficit.

In the debate, President Biden said: “He [Trump] had the largest national debt of any president in a four-your period, number one.” At the Office of Management and Budget’s historical tables page on the White House website, there is a file (table 1.1) that looks at the summary of receipts, outlays, and surpluses or deficits (-) from 1789 through 2029 (estimate). The OMB data shows a different picture. In Trump’s four years, the federal budget added 5.56 trillion dollars to the deficit. In Biden’s first three years, his budgets added 5.84 trillion.

Receipts in Biden’s first three years matched Trump’s four years, and the same comparison was true for spending. While Trump spent over 6 trillion dollars in 2020 to deal with COVID, each of the three prior years were under 4.5 trillion.

The difference between the two has been that Biden has normalized the COVID level of spending. In 2022 and 2023, he spent over 6 trillion, and the OMB estimate for 2024 increases to almost 7 trillion (6.9). In the projected four-year period estimated by OMB, President Biden’s federal budget deficits would reach 7.70 trillion dollars, which would be 2.14 trillion dollars larger than the four-year total for Trump’s presidency.

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Do Voters Connect Academic Subjects With Real World Skills?

One issue that has been of interest to us is connecting academic subjects with the concrete, usable skills they impart. To what extent do voters connect academic subjects with the real-world skills that students will need as adults?

To begin to answer this question, we asked voters two questions on our latest survey for Winning the Issues (June 14-16). First, how important is it for students graduating high school to understand variables and equations? Then, how important is it for students graduating high school to understand how a mortgage works, including what the monthly payments would be and how long it would take to pay it off? Understanding variables and equations, the foundation of algebra, is arguably foundational for being able to understand the mechanisms of taking out and repaying a loan for a house.

As shown in the table below, majorities of voters said both would be important, but with a gap between the importance of understanding variables/equations (79-18 important-not important) and the importance of understanding a mortgage (92-6). This was similar among parents (78-19 for understanding variables/equations; 93-5 for understanding a mortgage).

The difference in perceived importance is even greater when looking only at those who called each “very important.” Overall, 41% of voters said understanding variables and equations was very important. In contrast, two-thirds (67%) said understanding how a mortgage was very important, a difference of 26 points. The margin was only a little narrower among parents (18 points), with 46% saying that understanding variable/equations was very important and 64% saying that understanding a mortgage was very important.

While understanding both algebra and a mortgage are seen as important, voters clearly place more emphasis on the mortgage, demonstrating the disconnect between the academic subjects typically taught at school and the types of “real-world” skills parents typically say they want for their kids. Last week, we highlighted the recent NPR/Ipsos survey, showing that 40% of parents were concerned about students being prepared for the future. While there are many ways K-12 education could (and should) address this concern, a good first step might be to more closely demonstrate the links between what students are already expected to know when they graduate and the skills they will need as adults.

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What Makes Parents Worry About K-12 Eduction?

Previously, we have taken a look at the issue of chronic absenteeism, specifically a study that indicated parents both underestimate their child’s absences and are not all that concerned about the issue either. New data from a recent NPR/Ipsos survey reinforces this conclusion, but it also sheds light on what parents say they are concerned about.

Chronic absenteeism falls low on the list of potential concerns, coming in last (excluding “other”), with 5% of parents reporting being concerned. Other issues liked standardized tests (#11, 9% concerned) and learning loss (#8, 14% concerned) also fell lower in the list of priorities.

What are parents worried about? The top two concerns were bullying (39% concerned) and young people not being prepared for the future (40% concerned). The latter concern is especially shared by those who are not parents. Some 43% of US adults also said that they were concerned about the ability of our K-12 education system to prepare students for the future.

This is a concern that many have shared for some time, though it seems to be growing for parents. Data from a November 2021 survey for Winning the Issues showed only a bare majority of voters overall (52%) were confident in the ability of the US education system to prepare students for the future (52-42 confident-not confident). Parents, however, were more confident (64-32), in contrast to the 40% presently saying this is a concern.

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The Cost Of Student Loan Forgiveness In Context

At the end of last month, President Biden announced the latest round of student loan debt cancellation, wiping out $7.7 billion in loans for some 160,000 people. Combined with the other, more targeted student debt cancellation measures Biden has pursued as a piecemeal alternative to the mass cancellation the Supreme Court struck down last year, President Biden has now canceled around $167 billion worth of loans.

To put that number in context, we again took a look at that total cost in the context of funding for other agencies as we did last year for the mass cancellation. For the current purposes, we use the 2024 estimated budget authority for various agencies from the OMB Historical Tables (see table 5.2: Budget Authority by Agency: 1976-2029). So far, the cost of piecemeal student loan forgiveness exceeds the estimated 2024 budget authority for the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Justice, and State combined.

To check our work, we performed the same exercise looking at the estimated outlays for 2024 (see table 4.1: Outlays by Agency, 1962-2029). The conclusion was nearly the same. The cost of Biden’s student loan cancellation to date virtually matches the estimated outlays of the same four agencies combined.

In other words, the cost of loan cancellation to date would have funded four different agencies for this fiscal year. President Biden may not have been able to pursue loan cancellation as he originally envisioned, but the cost of doing so still meets or exceeds the cost of running multiple agencies.