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Poll shows deep chasm on consolidation Wednesday, Feb 4, 2004 By John Brummett Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - A new poll shows the voters of Arkansas to be almost evenly divided on whether to consolidate small school districts. But they're much more than that. They are conflicted, contradicting and, some might say, a tad schizophrenic. Divisions are deeply cultural, economic, generational and geographic, though not so much racial and not at all by gender. People with college educations and well-paying white collar jobs in urban areas overwhelmingly favor consolidation. Those with low-wage blue collar jobs in rural areas, and with only high school educations or less, overwhelmingly oppose it. Republicans favor consolidation more than Democrats. Central Arkansas embraces it; Northwest Arkansas kind of likes it; East Arkansas doesn't much care for it; and South Arkansas doesn't either. All of that and more is revealed in an exhaustive public opinion survey of Arkansans' attitudes on the ongoing education policy debate. Conducted by Opinion Research Associates, Inc., of Little Rock and commissioned by the Arkansas News Bureau of the Stephens Media Group, the poll encompassed calls to 500 Arkansans - 125 in each of the four congressional districts. Calls were placed Thursday through Monday. With that size sample, the survey has a margin for error of 4.5 percentage points. The survey does not validate Gov. Mike Huckabee's assertion that the people of the state would flock to an initiated act on consolidation. Nor does it validate assertions from rural school officials that they could rout such a proposal and pass a countering one of their own. What it does is give both sides reason to be mildly hopeful and mildly fearful. Pivotal voter attitudes seem ripe for molding, depending on message and emphasis. Here is the main over-all finding: On the question of whether respondents, generally speaking, favored or opposed consolidating some Arkansas school districts, 47 percent favored it and 43 percent opposed it. Thirty-one percent were strongly in favor and 34 percent strongly opposed. Of those favoring consolidation - a subsample totaling approximately half the respondents - 70 percent thought school districts should be no smaller than 500 students. Huckabee first wanted districts no smaller than 1,500, then he compromised to 500. The Legislature just passed legislation for administrative consolidation of districts with fewer than 350 students. Only 10 percent of those favoring consolidation preferred the Legislature's number. The greatest number, 34 percent, settled on 500. Once the poll got beyond those questions, responses began to ram headlong into each other and land all over the map. Take, for example, these results: -On whether consolidating school districts would be more economically efficient than the current situation, a central argument of pro-consolidation forces, 61 percent agreed, 42 per cent strongly. -On whether consolidation would enable youths in small towns to receive more and better course offerings, the other central argument, 68 percent agreed, 47 percent strongly. -But, as to the statement, "Arkansas will never be able to provide all children with a good education so long as there are so many school districts," which is the very essence of the debate, 61 percent disagreed, 48 percent strongly. Put another way: Two-thirds of the respondents thought consolidation would enhance course opportunities for children in small towns, but three-fifths thought the state could provide a quality education for those children without those enhanced course opportunities. It was in the cross-tabulations of voter attitudes according to demographic and other groupings that the stark cultural differences became evident. Attitudes were diametrically opposed according to income, type of occupation, education level, age, type of household and size of hometown. Those differences would matter less in regard to the whole if Arkansas wasn't so evenly split among urban and rural and rich and poor. Here are some of those glaring differences: -Persons with incomes of less than $25,000 a year opposed consolidation, 26 percent to 60 percent, while those with incomes exceeding $75,000 favored it by 82-13. -Those in white collar jobs favored consolidation, 55-36, while those in blue-collar jobs opposed it, 28-60. -Those with high school educations opposed it, 32-55, while those with college educations favored it, 67-26. -Persons between the ages of 18 and 35 opposed consolidation, 35-58, while those between 55 and 64 favored it, 51-48, and persons 65 and older favored it even more, by 49-38. Perhaps as striking as anything else was the finding that people with children in school strongly oppose consolidation. Respondents in households containing school-age children opposed it by 35-53 while those in households without school-age children favored it by 51-39. It would seem to be the case that parents oppose consolidation while grandparents favor it. Hardly surprising was that support for consolidation increased as the size of the respondents' places of residence increased. Those living in towns of less than 1,000 population opposed consolidation by 40 percent to 58 percent. Then this was the clear trend: In towns of 1,000 to 5,000, consolidation was opposed 41-48; in towns of 5,000 to 10,000, it was favored by 50 percent to 35 percent; in towns of 10,000 to 20,000, it was favored by 55-28; at 20,000 to 50,000, it was favored by 58-27; and in cities of greater than 50,000, it was overwhelmingly embraced, 63-26. Support was strongest in the 2nd District of Central Arkansas, 56-33, followed by the 3rd District of Northwest Arkansas, 47-34. But respondents in the 1st District of East Arkansas opposed consolidation, 44-51, and those in the 4th District of South Arkansas felt much the same, 39-51. Republicans, strongest in the high-growth areas, favored consolidation by 58-35. Democrats, still predominant in rural Arkansas, opposed it 43-46. Whites favored consolidation by 47-42. Blacks were split, 45-45. Responses varied little according to gender. Men favored consolidation by 47-43 and women favored it by 46-41. Even on the effect of consolidation on high school sports, the respondents seemed conflicted - or maybe they were simply sensitive to both sides. Sixty-three percent agreed that "consolidated schools can offer more sports and can field more competitive teams." But 60 percent agreed that "small school districts allow for more children to participate in sports." |
