Liberal group's (PPIC) loaded questions

Big surprise: A liberal-leaning think tank releases a study showing that Californians want more government spending on public education. As the Public Policy Institute of California explains in a newly released study, “As California once again confronts a multibillion dollar budget deficit, concern has grown considerably among the state’s residents about the consequences of spending cuts on kindergarten through 12th grade education, according to an annual survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) with funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Californians today are more likely than last year to believe that funding for their local schools is inadequate, and parents of public school students are far more likely to say that state budget cuts have had a big effect on their children’s schools.”

Ironically, PPIC claims not to have a political bias, although it’s clear especially from the loaded questions in this survey that it has a strong outlook. The questions mostly seem geared to eliciting the response that the schools are underfunded. I only saw one question relating to the effectiveness of current spending and nothing relating to the misuse of taxpayer dollars or to the way unions influence school spending. Most of the questions strike me as loaded ones that result in a predictable result.

Certainly, the public knows that their government-run schools have problems. But there are other choices than simply raising taxes, floating debt and giving the current establishment even more money. Not that anyone would know what those other choices are based on PPIC’s “non-partisan” research.

–Steven Greenhut