COMPARISON OF PERCEPTIONS OF EDUCATORS AND CITIZENS ON SELECTED CURRENT ISSUES IN PUBLIC EDUCATION

This study investigated the perceptions of administrators, citizens, teachers, and teacher educators in three counties in Central Florida on selected current issues in public education. The research also compared the perceptions from the sample groups in three differing counties. Members of each of the groups, administrators, citizens, teachers, and teacher educators were to express their opinion to sixty selected statements on twelve current issues in public education. The groups were asked to rank the issues and grade the public schools in their community. The survey questionnaire was administered to 1,262 participants, selected randomly from the three counties. One hundred and seven administrators, 116 citizens representing lay advisory councils, 1,022 teachers, and 17 teacher educators responded to the survey. The questionnaire contained sixty statements on the following current issues in public education: discipline, administrative leadership in the schools, teacher salaries, paperwork for educators, teacher evaluation, "back to basics" movement, financing public education, class size, schools being the cure-all for societal problems, stress and burnout, staff development and inservice for educators, and interest of parents, students, and teachers in public schools. Using a Likert scale of "strongly agree", "agree", "undecided", "disagree", and "strongly disagree", respondents indicated their perception of the statements about the issues. The chi square test of independence was the statistical method used to determine significant differences in the study population. Conclusions drawn from the survey indicated significant differences of perceptions by administrators, citizens, teachers, and teacher educators on forty-nine of the sixty statements on selected current issues in public education. Significant differences occurred between Orange, Osceola, and Seminole counties on fifteen of the sixty statements on selected current issues in public education. Administrators, citizens, and teachers by level of position (elementary, middle/junior, high school, and district) responded with significant differences on forty-seven of the sixty statements on selected current issues in public education. Differences were indicated in ranking the most important issues by the groups. The groups graded the schools between a B or "good" and C or "average" on the quality of education.