994) conducted a study of the attitudes toward school choice held by administrators, teachers, and parents. A survey of a total of 215 elementary school administrators, teachers, and parents in central Tennessee elicited 100 responses.
Pearson's correlation, multiple regression, and chi-square statistical procedures were used to analyze the data. Parents reported that they wanted school choice, but did not want to pay for choice for all parents and students, viewing choice as an individual decision.
All respondents, including administrators, opposed private-school vouchers at the public's expense, unless the schools had unrestricted enrollment and were subject to the same federal regulations as public schools. However, more parents than either teachers or administrators favored choice, saying that it would increase parental involvement.
Similarly, in survey research conducted by Dlugosh and Sybouts (1994) of administrators and school board members from 362 school districts in a seven-state area (Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming), administrators were once again found to generally be against school vouchers. Indeed, according to the authors, the surveyed educators did not even consider school vouchers a viable school reform option.
The fact that administrators, on the average, oppose school choice is not surprising to Dewey (1996) who, in a comprehensive discussion of the issue, reported that most studies show that both public school teachers and administrators are generally against school vouchers. In this regard, Dewey states that these educators tend to view voucher programs as an actual setback to school reform, only contributing to diminishing school autonomy and distinctiveness.
The difficulty with the foregoing findings is that they are not unexpected in that educators are threatened by the concept of school vouchers which, if implemented, could mean less funds for local ...