In an education survey of Miami Dade county voters, conducted by Miami’s Community Newspapers, respondents across the political spectrum were largely in agreement. The 2,280 completed surveys represents one of the broadest efforts to assess voter opinions in Miami Dade in recent years.
Miami Dade voters made three issues clear:
1. Voters are not generally aware that our school board has no operational or budget oversight over local charter schools.
2. Voters believe that if charter schools are receiving tax dollars, that school board should have oversight.
3. All Miami Dade voters agree that taxpayer money approved in November for teacher pay raises should not be given to for-profit charter schools with no local oversight.
The objective of the five question survey was to gauge the voters understanding of the relationship between charter schools and our local school board, to measure voter opinions on who should have oversight of schools that receive taxpayer dollars and lastly who should receive tax payer dollars approved in November for public school teacher pay raises.
Key Findings
When voters were asked:
“Are you aware that our local School Board has no budgetary and operational control of local charter schools, including how they spend our tax dollars, what they teach students or verifying the certification of their teachers?”
Yes No Unsure
DEM 45.1% 48.76% 6.13%
REP 43.04% 47.99% 8.97%
NPA/OTHER 38.64% 53.74% 7.62%
“Do you feel that our local school board should have oversight of our local for-profit charter schools if they are spending our tax dollars?”
Yes No Unsure
DEM 81.01 10.58 8.41
REP 56.59 28.21 15.2
NPA/OTHER 69.67 15.79 14.54
“Do you think for-profit charter schools should receive additional tax dollars from the November referendum for raising teacher salaries even if there is no requirement for these charter schools to spend it only on teacher salaries and no oversight from our local school board?”
Yes No Unsure
DEM 13.95 75.07 10.98
REP 29.3 55.13 15.57
NPA/OTHER 18.98 64.82 16.2
The survey was conducted over a four day span by emailing nearly 200,000 Miami Dade county voters five questions. The random responses nearly mirrored the partisan composition of the electorate in the county which is 42% Democrat, 32% NPA/Other and 26% Republican.
The gender make up of the survey was 55% Female, 43% Male and 2% Other.
Voters self identified as 18% Anglo, 7% African American, 22% Cuban American, 32% Hispanic, 4% Multi-Race, 2% Haitian and 9% Other.
