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In recent years, cities have been the epicenter of education reform movements, especially with regard to accountability. This paper examines whether mayors pay a price at the polls when test scores in their local public schools drop. In the post-No Child Left Behind era, schools are required to publicly report their scores, making it easier for citizens and the media to know how the schools are doing on these indicators. And though mayors' policies are not likely to have immediate positive or negative effects on school performance, voters often hold incumbents responsible for events over which they have little control. The analysis is based on survey data conducted in advance of mayoral contests in 16 cities in the United States between 2007 and 2009 that have been matched with data on test scores in each city. The results suggest that voters do reward incumbents for improvements in test scores, but only in competitive races. Further, voters are not more likely to hold mayors accountable in cities where mayors have control over the schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the difficulties and discusses the importance of measuring public opinion in an environment recently ravaged by a natural disaster. In the spring of 2006, just seven months after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the majority of the city, New Orleans held a municipal election. There was significant disagreement about the composition of the electorate, with some residents having returned to life as normal, others living in or near the city and rebuilding their homes, and others living in other states, but still considering themselves New Orleans residents. We describe the experience of polling in this context. These conditions make it very difficult to accurately measure the public's attitudes; yet, there are perhaps very few more important situations in which the public's attitudes need to be examined. An election closely following a natural disaster requires voters to cast judgment on the current administration's handling of the crisis, as well as to chart the course of a recovery. We present the results of our surveys and compare them to other polls conducted after Katrina, noting what we got right and where we went astray. From these lessons we provide advice for others who may find themselves in similar circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research suggests that members of racial and ethnic minorities, especially African Americans and Latinos, are especially supportive of education reforms such as school vouchers. Using the Pew Hispanic Center/ Henry K. Kaiser Family Foundation 2003 National Survey of Latinos on Education, we examine both the minority support and minority opposition hypotheses, and generally find Latinos to be more supportive of many aspects of No Child Left Behind. Of the variety of explanations for such support, we find that religion, notably Catholicism, is the best explanation for Latino support. Interestingly, we also show that while Republicans are unsurprisingly more inclined to support the provisions of NCLB, Democrats are not similarly opposed to them. Finally, we find that general knowledge of recent developments in education policy is not very high, but is an important indicator of opinion. This suggests to us that future opinion on this legislation and education reform in general is still up for grabs, and that parties and interest groups have a relatively open forum to shape this debate as they wish. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on surveys of adolescent respondents from nine rural Iowa and Maryland communities, we explore the roots of tolerance for immigration-related diversity. We find that rural attitudes toward immigrants are surprisingly variable along a number of important dimensions: economic status, family longevity in the community, and employment in agriculture. The extent to which an adolescent’s family is rooted in the community proves to be a critical determinant of diversity attitudes. But neighborhood contexts also matter. The presence of a large foreign born population yields greater hostility to diversity among those with well-rooted families, but not among the poor, whom we might expect to be most threatened by immigrant labor. In fact, low income natives are the least hostile to diversity, perhaps because their equal status contact in classrooms and neighborhoods brings about greater friendship and understanding. Our results suggest that reservations about the foreign born presence in rural America rest not in personal economic threat, but in a more general unease about change on a variety of fronts, economic and otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural America and its electorate are the subject of highly contradictory characterizations and judgments in academic literature across the social sciences. Some accounts suggest that rural locales are sterling examples of civic vitality, to be held up as models for the rest of the country on how to produce a truly enlightened political community, characterized by low crime, less hostility, better health, and civic and economic equality. A rather different view is expressed by those who are convinced that rural America is racist, homophobic, hostile to civil liberties, anti-government and generally at war with liberal political values. Using panel data from a study of rural adolescents from the Fall of 2001 and Spring of 2002, we examine the sources of conservative political socialization in the rural population. We find that many of the same features of rural life that are subject to widespread admiration: agrarianism, rootedness, entrepreneurship and involvement in community, are some of the same characteristics that are the foundation for conservative opinions on civil liberties, morality and the response to terrorism after 9-11. It is certainly possible to find citizens with liberal political values among the rural population, but many of the core features of rural life, including its rootedness, appear to conspire in favor of the values of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]