Conservative education advocates Ready Colorado used Cygnal polling to determine the state of affairs in Colorado. The poll is of mixed quality. It provides examples of how questions asked certain ways, and with skew in the polling sample, will produce induced results.

The poll’s initial questions are straightforward and innocuous. The poll shows Gov. Jared Polis is popular (60.6% approve), President Joe Biden is so-so (47% approve), and the state legislature is just slightly more so-so than the President (47.3% approve). More people are very favorable of the president (16.9%) than of the legislature (9.1%).

A majority believes Colorado is moving in the right direction, at least mostly, at 53%. But in education, only 30.6% believe the state is on the right track with 41% affirming the wrong track. For questions related to education quality, it’s probably best to check in with the age group that most likely has children in school. The poll does not do that. It samples 46.2% of individuals from 18 to 49 and 53.8% of people at 50-plus. Though this may reflect likely voters in 2023, the sample does not reflect those who will know most directly about the current condition of public education.

The party distribution under-samples unaffiliated voters, possibly assuming they will not vote at the same level as party-registered voters. That assumption has not proved itself in recent elections. Now unaffiliated voters are 47% of the voting public, but the poll only samples 34.8% with Democrats at 34.2% and the GOP at 28%. The poll asked individuals to declare whether they were conservative, moderate, or liberal, with the following breakdown: 34.2% conservative, 28.9% moderate, 34.7% liberal.

Homelessness came in as the most important issue Coloradans would like to see addressed (17%) followed by crime (13%), government spending (13%), and public education (12.1%). Homelessness made the most dramatic jump year-to-year, with increased concern up by 8 percentage points from 2022 to 2023.

One object of the poll is to find out how Coloradans feel about charter schools, or as the poll states, “tuition-free public schools” that are “open to all children” and “have more flexibility in terms of teacher hiring and curriculum but are held accountable for student performance.”

First, while charters are ostensibly “open to all children,” the demographics of many charter schools show they significantly skew toward ethnic/racial background, either mostly white or mostly minority. They also significantly skew by income, either a small percent of students on free or reduced lunch or a large percent of students on free or reduced lunch.

There’s lots of evidence, both anecdotal and statistical, that students with disabilities on Independent Education Plans (IEPs) are not represented in charter schools at the same percent as in traditional public schools. So it’s easy to argue the polling question’s framing positive v. negative attitudes to charter schools is an inaccurate portrayal of the reality of charter school populations.

An accurate portrayal would look like this: “Charter schools are tuition-free, publicly-funded schools open to children whose parents agree with the school’s mission, whatever that may be. Charters tend to bring in homogenous groups of children, either white or minority, with above-average income or below-average income. Charters have more flexibility in hiring teachers which means there’s a high number of teachers without license certificates and with fewer than five years of teaching experience. Children with disabilities are often discouraged from a charter because the charter doesn’t want to have the resources to support their disabilities. After hearing this information, do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of tuition-free, publicly-funded charter schools?”

The poll also asks policy questions, such as should school choice be embedded in the constitution, should there be new investments in math resources, and should there be savings accounts for special-needs children and their families. Every reading and writing teacher would like an additional question as to whether there should be new investments in material to help children read and write better.

The three policy questions in the poll receive positive responses as does an acknowledgement that an average teacher salary of $54,000 per year is inadequate. Teachers, the poll indicates, need to be paid more.

The poll doesn’t indicate the voters’ priorities on funding for teacher salaries versus math materials versus savings accounts for special-needs children.

When asked whether the state should increase funding for schools by raising taxes or better prioritizing state spending, the latter won in a landslide. The poll doesn’t offer how the spending prioritization should occur. That is, should more money be put into schools at the cost of underfunding homelessness, as an example.

It’s probably not possible to put together a poll that provides enough nuance to understand where voters come down on these complicated issues. This poll will guide conservative Colorado as to paths to further disrupt neighborhood schools, community middle and high schools and traditional education in general. Heads up.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.