Confidence in California public schools has declined as voters and parents overwhelmingly have concluded that the quality of education worsened during the pandemic, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.
Pollsters asked voters to give schools a letter-grade rating from A to F — essentially the same question asked of voters in a 2011 USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. A decade ago, the results were interpreted as sobering; the numbers are worse now.
Statewide, about 21% of voters give the state’s public schools an A or B; in 2011 it was 27%. Meanwhile, D or F grades statewide rose 15 percentage points in the last decade, from 13% to 28%.
In the city of Los Angeles, 18% of voters give schools an A or B; about 1 in 3 voters give D or F marks to public schools. Comparable figures are not available for 2011.
“The decline is significant,” Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll, who has surveyed voters in California for more than four decades. “It could be a long-term trend, but I would certainly think that the impact of COVID has probably contributed to it.”
As in 2011, voters still give their local schools higher marks on average than they give to schools statewide, but the gap has shrunk. Statewide, 35% of voters give an A or B to “the public schools attended by children who live in your neighborhood.”
The percentage in Los Angeles was 24%. Improving both the perception and reality of L.A schools is part of the agenda laid out in a “100-Day Plan” unveiled Thursday by new L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho.