And a majority of respondents would address the problem with such measures as random drug testing and the use of trained dogs to sniff out drugs in school. The public supports a variety of measures for maintaining order in school, including removing troublemakers from the classroom, requiring all students to remain on campus at lunchtime, banning smoking, and outlawing hugging and kissing on school grounds. A small majority of the public approves the fast-growing movement for requiring students to wear uniforms in public schools. People strongly endorse the idea of community service as a requirement for high school graduation. If forced to choose, a majority of respondents would prefer that children make average grades and be active in extracurricular activities rather than make straight A's and not be active.
Respondents reject teaching about the gay and lesbian lifestyle in the public schools.
A majority also believe that gay and lesbian students should not be allowed to organize a club as part of a school's extracurricular program. A number of this year's poll questions were designed to determine how well the public is informed on education issues. The results suggest that the public has been negatively affected by distorted, biased, or inadequate media coverage. The public believes, for example, that American student achievement does not compare favorably with that of students in other developed countries, even though recent studies show American students near the top in reading and no worse than average in math. The public also believes that the dropout rate is now higher than 25 years ago, even though government data show that the dropout rate has fallen steadily for the past 50 years.