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Above, while voters want more voc schools, Tri-County Voc has followed the traditional path of simply tearing down one school structure to replace it with a slightly newer building.
According to the Pioneer Institute, a new statewide poll finds overwhelming support among Massachusetts adults for expanding vocational-technical high school capacity, along with broad backing for school choice options, including the new Federal Tax Credit Scholarship Program.
The poll of 584 Massachusetts residents aged 18 and older finds that support for vocational-technical education is nearly universal: 95.6 percent of respondents favor expanding vocational-technical high schools in the Commonwealth to meet demand.
More broadly, 78 percent of respondents believe that any family, regardless of income, with a student who isn’t succeeding in their local traditional public school should have access to other educational choices.
“As the performance of traditional public schools in Massachusetts continues to decline, support for more educational options is strong,” said Pioneer’s Director of Education Jamie Gass.
Despite the defeat a decade ago of a statewide ballot initiative that would have expanded access to charter public schools, Massachusetts residents remain supportive of charters. Fifty-six percent of respondents support charters, compared to 20.6 percent who oppose them. When respondents were told that more than 80 percent of Massachusetts charter schools serve low-income and urban areas, support rose to 61.3 percent.
Nearly 71 percent of respondents support tax-credit programs operating in a majority of states – including New Hampshire and Rhode Island – that provide incentives to individuals and businesses making charitable contributions to scholarship funds. These funds are then used to help families send students to the schools of their choice—and are largely targeted to lower-income families.
The poll also tested support for a new Federal Tax Credit Scholarship Program that would allow families with students in public or private schools to receive tax credits for academic tutoring, special-needs services, private school tuition and other K-12 educational expenses. More than two-thirds of respondents support Governor Healey opting Massachusetts into the program, as required under federal law. After being given brief arguments for and against opting in, support falls to 50.7 percent.
The only instance in which respondents didn’t support expanded school choice involved two state constitutional amendments adopted following the arrival of Irish-Catholic immigrants who sought to send their children to Catholic schools. The amendments prohibit public funding from flowing to parents who send their children to religious schools. Just over 31 percent of respondents support repealing the amendments, though support rises to 40.4 percent when public funding is limited to low-income families.
The findings on school choice come amid declining confidence in the state’s traditional public schools. Overall, 45.7 percent of respondents rate the quality of Massachusetts public schools as high or very high, while 17.4 percent rank them poor or very poor.
The poll was conducted by Opinion Diagnostics and has a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
