The 53rd Annual PDK Poll of public attitudes toward public education finds that majorities of Americans give high marks to their community’s public schools – and particularly to public school teachers – for their response to the coronavirus pandemic in the last school year. And most express confidence in the schools’ preparedness for the year ahead. See the full report of the poll, produced for PDK by Langer Research Associates, here and commentary from the public education advocate Jan Resseger here.

Our most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll covered a variety of topics, including the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan; public responses to an evolving coronavirus threat, including vaccination and mask mandates; and Americans’ assessments of the post-9/11 world. The poll was picked up by many outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, The Hill, FiveThirtyEight, the Chicago Sun-Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Brookings InstitutionThe BMJ, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, MarketWatch, and The Phoenix.

Surveys on education and economic mobility in the past month find reasons both for hope and concern as the nation emerges from the coronavirus pandemic.

On the education front, some parents express reluctance to return their child to school and many are hesitant to have their child vaccinated, factors complicating school policy in the fall. A third of principals, meanwhile, plan to accommodate requests for remote learning, even amid questions about its comparative effectiveness. Attitudes nationally are divided on another topic, the teaching of critical race theory.

Economic measures, for their part, show gains in consumer sentiment, including among less well-off Americans, and employment opportunities advancing among teenagers. Two new studies examine the role of education in economic well-being; another finds broad support for federal action on healthcare affordability.

These and other topics are covered in our latest monthly summary of newly released probability-based surveys on education and economic opportunity; see our report here. Sponsors and producers of such surveys are welcome to contact us to have their work included in future summaries.

This project is supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Our latest ABC News/Washington Post poll finds intense partisanship holding Joe Biden’s job approval rating at a tepid 52 percent, the third lowest of any president at 100 days in office since 1945. In addition to coverage by ABC and the Post, it’s been picked up by Bloomberg, CNBC, Axios, Newsweek, the Global Times, Business Insider, and The Hill, among others.

The poll also explored vaccine attitudes, finding that fewer than half of Americans see the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine as safe, compared with more than 7 in 10 for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. It’s been covered by Kaiser Health News, WebMD, Forbes, New York magazine, The Week, and The Hill, Vanity Fair.

In addition to these topics, the poll investigated the effects of the pandemic on finances and relationships, views of police treatment of Black people and gun violence legislation. These results have been carried by The New York Times, MSNBC, The Boston Globe and The Hill.

Our new national survey produced for the COVID Collaborative finds that Americans’ actions or intentions to get vaccinated against the coronavirus held steady from January into March, marking the need for continued public awareness efforts in support of the accelerating vaccine rollout.

So far, people who want a shot are signing up – but those who’ve been hesitant, remain so. The study finds that while vaccinations rose by 14 percentage points since January, the share of Americans who intend to get vaccinated fell by 13 points, leaving actual or intended uptake steady at about seven in 10 adults.

The survey shows broad demographic and attitudinal disparities in vaccinations and uptake intentions, as well as a high level of Americans adopting a “wait and see” approach. It finds that information on the vaccines’ safety and effectiveness and on its development and testing may be most persuasive in encouraging people not to wait, along with advice from their regular healthcare provider.

The survey follows on a previous national study, also produced for the COVID Collaborative by Langer Research, that examined the strongest independent predictors of intention to get vaccinated. Chief among them are trust in the vaccines’ safety and effectiveness, the understanding that people close to you want you to get vaccinated, recognition of a community responsibility in getting vaccinated and worry about becoming infected.

See the full report here and a separate summary of attitudes among college community members here. The survey questionnaire, crosstabs and dataset have been donated to the SEAN COVID-19 Survey Archive, produced by Langer Research in support of the National Academies of Sciences’ Societal Experts Action Network, a group of social science experts convened to support pandemic response efforts.

A new national survey by the COVID Collaborative and Langer Research Associates finds that stressing safety and effectiveness, the support of loved ones and community responsibility are the surest ways to encourage coronavirus vaccine uptake.

Based on statistical modeling, the random-sample study, released today, finds four key predictors of Americans’ intention to get vaccinated:

  • Safety and effectiveness. Seeing the vaccines as safe and effective is by far the single strongest predictor of intended uptake.
  • A subjective social norm, meaning the sense that others close to you want you to get vaccinated. This is the second-strongest predictor of intended uptake, with considerable room for improvement on current sentiment.
  • Social responsibility, the understanding that getting vaccinated is a social need rather than just a personal preference. Recognizing this “moral norm” again is far from universal, and it’s the next-strongest uptake predictor.
  • Perceived disease risk. The likelier people are to be worried about catching the coronavirus, the likelier to get vaccinated against it.

The survey finds that 71 percent of Americans say they definitely or probably will get the vaccine, lean that way or already have done so. Gaining adherence among these convinced or favorably inclined groups would approach the minimum vaccination level considered desirable to achieve herd immunity.

The survey, first in a series, evaluates other vaccine uptake attitudes, including the extent of “wait-and-see” sentiment, views toward vaccines generally, concerns about potential side effects, eligibility awareness and trusted information sources. It follows on a previous national study, also produced for the COVID Collaborative by Langer Research, focused on vaccine hesitancy among Black and Hispanic Americans.

See the full report here. Underlying materials including the survey questionnaire, crosstabs and dataset have been donated to the SEAN COVID-19 Survey Archive, operated by Langer Research in support of the National Academies of Sciences’ Societal Experts Action Network, a group of social science experts convened to support pandemic response efforts.

We’re proud to have partnered with Raise Your Hand Texas Foundation to produce its second annual poll of public attitudes toward public education in the state. The newly released statewide survey finds that Texans’ views of the state’s public schools have improved amid the coronavirus pandemic: Fifty-six percent give their community’s public schools an A or B grade, up 8 points from late 2019.

The survey takes an in-depth look at attitudes toward public education in the state, with a focus on pandemic impacts. Among the results:

  • Nearly eight in 10 public school parents rate their child’s school’s learning model – online, in-person or hybrid – as very or somewhat effective. Still, it’s lower, seven in 10, among parents whose child’s learning is fully remote, vs. 87 percent among those with an in-person or hybrid approach. And those with students learning entirely remotely are far less likely to call the approach very effective, 19 vs. 50 percent.
  • Asked about problems facing their children during the pandemic, more than seven in 10 parents mention missing social interactions at school or with friends; 64 percent say the same of missing personal connections with teachers and 55 percent cite missing sports, music, arts and after-school activities. Two in 10 mention lack of access to food and school support services.
  • Among Texans overall, majorities say it’s extremely or very important for schools to provide a safe, sanitized environment for in-person learning, to provide support for remote learning, to address learning loss caused by the move to remote learning, to provide support for students’ and teachers’ emotional health and well-being and to address student nutrition support. Most also say public schools need more funding for each of nine COVID-related challenges tested in the survey.
  • Forty-four percent, including 51 percent of public school parents, said they have a greater appreciation for their community’s schools now than before the pandemic.

Additional results cover views on equity issues, school funding, ratings of teachers, and attitudes toward testing, vouchers and charter schools. See the full report here, and additional coverage by The Dallas Morning News (here and here) and the San Antonio Report

Seven in 10 Americans say Donald Trump bears at least some responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and 68 percent oppose him issuing a self-pardon for federal crimes he may be accused of committing in our pre-inaugural ABC News/Washington Post poll. The poll also found that nearly nine in 10 Americans see the coronavirus as not well controlled, though with many fewer saying they’ll get vaccinated.

Additional news coverage – apart from ABC and the Post – includes The HillForbesVox, and USA Today, and local newspapers such as The Berkshire Eagle, the Green Bay Press GazetteThe Fayetteville Observer, the Austin American-Statesman, the Albany Times Union and The Philadelphia Inquirer

A new nonprofit, the COVID Collaborative, was launched today with the release of a national survey by Langer Research Associates deeply evaluating vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans.
 
Grounded in a review of the literature and consultation with experts in the vaccine uptake and health equity fields, the study delves into predictors of intention to get vaccinated against the coronavirus as well as predictors of trust in vaccine safety and in the vaccine development process.
 
It finds broad distrust in the safety of the vaccine and describes avenues to encouraging uptake, including enhanced understanding of the development and approval process, the power of moral and subjective norms and messaging that’s sensitive to Black people’s experience of discrimination and mistreatment in current and historical medical practices.
 
Conducted among a random national sample of 1,050 Black adults, with a sample of 258 Latinx adults for comparison, the study is being used to help inform a $50 million vaccine education campaign directed by the Ad Council with the participation of the NAACP and UnidosUS.

See coverage of the survey in the Washington Post

The COVID Collaborative is a nonpartisan nonprofit created to work with state and local leaders to forge solutions to the pandemic. It was co-founded by John Bridgeland of the social enterprise firm Civic and Michelle Williams, dean of faculty at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University. Former Govs. Dirk Kempthorne, R-Idaho, and Deval Patrick, D-Massachusetts, serve as co-chairs of its Advisory Council, joined by a range of political and public health leaders.

See our report here. Full materials, including the survey questionnaire, crosstabulated data tables and dataset in .sav and .csv formats, are available on the Societal Experts Action Networks COVID-19 Survey Archive; in Search, enter “COVID Collaborative” in the Project field.