Wyoming Education Association

Fall 2017

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Back-to-School 2017 | wyoea.org 2 With the current financial crisis facing Wyoming, K-12 education funding is on the chopping block. This was demonstrated during the last legislative session when $53 million was cut from this school year. More cuts are predicted, with a $270 million shortfall next year, and $540 million for the upcoming biennium. These cuts are being justified by legislators who claim that their constituents tell them that cuts to education funding are preferred over raising revenue through increased taxes. Yet, when I talk to people, many more say they are willing to pay more in taxes rather than cut education funding, which would diminish the quality of our education system. During one of the recent Practitioner Panel sessions held by the consultants hired for the recalibration process, many of those testifying said they were willing to pay more in taxes if it went to K-12 education. So who should we believe? To get a better answer, WEA decided to conduct a scientific poll and share the results (see pages 13-14). We contracted with a highly reputable firm, Public Opinion Strategies (POS), the largest Republican polling firm in the nation. Our pollster surveyed 500 registered Wyoming voters. They ensured demographic diversity as well as representation by county and by population. Some reaction to our poll questioned whether 500 responses were enough. In comparison, a typical nationwide poll of the entire United States is 1,000 respondents. The bottom line comes down to the margin of error, which in our poll is 4.38%. If we had sampled 5,000 people, we would get the same survey results, with a lower margin of error. Another factor to determine a poll's validity is to question the sample of those polled. One reaction to our poll was to assume that we only polled our members. Not true. This poll was a random sample of all registered voters. All serious surveys have some form of random or probability sampling, according to the American Association of Public Opinion Research, and our poll did. Probability sampling allows a survey to sample a relatively small number of respondents and to project the result to a larger population. According to Lori Weigel, a Partner with POS, the polling process is analogous to taste-testing a large vat of soup. By tasting one or two spoonfuls of the soup, you may not know how the entire batch will taste. But after several bowls, you pretty much know the taste of the entire batch. The 500-person sample is analogous to tasting several bowls of the soup. The bottom line is the recent poll contracted by the WEA utilized a highly-respected polling firm that used valid methods, and the results reveal that Wyoming voters prefer to see an increase in taxes to fund education before further cuts or decreasing quality. Ron Sniffin WEA Executive Director rsniffin@wyoea.org WEA Poll Shows Great Support for K-12 Funding Executive Director's Message

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