Compared with other polls, the Joint Center's survey was a model of probity. They are held accountable for achieving educational results, and in return they receive waivers that exempt them from many of the restrictions and bureaucratic rules that apply to traditional public schools. The vast multitudes who hate accountability and revere red tape could have been expected to oppose. Only 26 percent did. For good or ill, the American public is not dominated by the policy wonk tribe.
Most folks spend precious little time considering public affairs at all, much less the finer points.
The vast majority of the public knows very little about school vouchers. Besides, a poll has no consequences, and people know it. One thing they seem to have learned is that an issue is invariably more complicated than any poll question makes it out to be. Margaret Trimmer-Hartley of the Michigan National Education Association said the most convincing argument against vouchers in that state was that the final choices would be made not by parents but by the proprietors of private schools. Wayne Johnson, the president of the California Teachers Association, conceded that early polls in his state gave vouchers a lead of roughly 70 percent to 30 percent.