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What's new on School Facts Jax: Public opinion on education in Jacksonville

3/1/2013

Recently, the University of North Florida published the results of a survey conducted among Jacksonville residents asking about their opinions different issues relevant to our community.  Among the issues included in the survey, education was one of the top concerns for people living in Jacksonville, with 24 percent saying that improving public education should be the top priority.

The three questions about education specifically included in this survey were:

  • How satisfied are you with the quality of public education in Jacksonville?
  • Do you think increasing the budget for public education will improve the quality of education in Jacksonville?
  • Do you support or oppose a small increase in property taxes go to public education?

 

Whats -New -Mar 2013UNFStudy

Whats -New -Mar 2013UNFStudy

*Click here to explore the results*


Just one in ten participants said they were satisfied, while nearly a third expressed being very unsatisfied with the quality of education.  Half of respondents thought that increasing the budget would help improve the quality of public education, and 36 percent said they  would even support the idea of raising taxes to improve public education.

Younger people (18-24) seem to be more unsatisfied with the quality of public education (45 percent). They are also the strongest supporters to the idea that increasing the budget will improve the quality of public education (69 percent), and half of them are more likely to support a small increase in property taxes to support public education.UNF also looked at the results across subgroups of age, race, gender, income level, education level, and area of town the respondents lived in.  When looking at the results based on some of these demographic groupings a number of important trends emerge, including:
  • Participants with a graduate degree seem to be less satisfied with the quality of public education (40 percent).
  • Hispanics are the group that supports the most the idea of increasing the budget to improve the quality of public education (76 percent) and they also endorsed the idea of raising taxes to support public education (65 percent)

The survey also questioned participants about the approval rate of the new Duval Schools Superintendent, Dr. Nikolai Vitti. Even though a large number of respondents did not provide any response to this question (40 percent) - likely due to the fact that he is fairly new in this position - of those who provided an answer, he received a strong approval rate of 43 percent.

The data available provides some rich insight into what different groups across Duval County think about the quality of public education and what should be done about it.  Use the visualization below to dig through the data and learn more.  Be sure to click across the tabs at the top to see each question. What other patterns begin to emerge?

For more information, see the complete survey results report at UNF's website. 

Special thanks Dr. Michael Binder, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of North Florida, for kindly sharing the results of the study with Jacksonville Public Education Fund. For more information about Dr. Binder's work, please visit his faculty profile page. 


DID YOU KNOW?

 

93%

of public schools in Duval County earned an "A," "B," or "C" in 2021-2022.