ARKANSANS DIVIDED ON ISSUES OF EDUCATION, COMMUNITY GROWTH, ACCORDING TO FOURTH ANNUAL ARKANSAS POLL

Editor’s note: The 2002 Arkansas Poll and its predecessors may be accessed at http://plsc.uark.edu/arkpoll/.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Results from the fourth annual Arkansas Poll suggest that Arkansans are of two minds concerning the fate of education in the state — favorable toward reform, renovation and construction but unwilling to shoulder the cost of such improvements. Additionally, residents in different areas of the state appear divided on how economic development will impact quality of life.

Conducted Oct. 9-20 by the University of Arkansas Survey Research Center, the 2002 Arkansas Poll canvassed 768 Arkansans, gathering information on policy issues, quality of life and approval ratings for public officials. Key issues in this year’s poll included education finance and reform, economic growth and development, and immigration.

"It’s the first of those issues, education finance and reform, that presents one of the biggest challenges our state will face in the coming year. And results from the poll indicate that Arkansans may not be thinking realistically about how to solve that problem," said Janine Parry, director of the poll.

With the Arkansas Supreme Court poised to declare the state’s public education finance system unconstitutional and its curriculum inadequate, Arkansas faces the prospect of pumping an additional $400 million to $1 billion into its education budget each year.

Results from the poll indicate that the vast majority of Arkansans favor raising teacher salaries, increasing access to state-funded pre-schools, improving school facilities and expanding career education opportunities. In each case, over 75 percent of respondents said they approved or strongly approved of the proposal. Of these individuals, 63 percent favored instituting all four ideas to improve public education.

When presented with proposals on how to pay for such reforms, however, only 38 percent of Arkansans approved of raising sales taxes, while 29 percent approved of raising income taxes and a mere 28 percent favored increased property taxes. Yet Gary Ritter, assistant professor of education and policy, noted that, of the individuals who strongly oppose raising taxes, 50 percent were also among the group who advocated each of the four reform ideas for improving K-12 education.

"There seems to be a disconnect between the desire for reforms and the willingness to pay for them," Ritter observed.

The one exception to this paradox involves some surprising findings about Amendment #3. Respondents were asked if they favored or opposed the elimination of sales tax on food and medicine if they also knew that it likely would produce a reduction in public services. Given this context, a majority of Arkansas respondents-57.3 percent-opposed Amendment #3. Only 39 percent favored the measure.

"These figures are rather startling in light of the high approval rates many other polls have reported," Parry said. "The explanation for our finding very likely lies in the way we asked the question. Because the language of Amendment 3 as it will appear on the ballot highlights the potential loss of money for state and local governments and many public agencies, we felt it was important to ask the survey question that way. Indeed, when the issue was phrased in a way that reminded people that a likely outcome was less money for public services, a majority said they would oppose the measure.

"Whether Amendment #3 ultimately passes or fails will depend on how clearly the opponents of the measure are able to illustrate for voters the connection between lower taxes and reduced services," Parry said.

While 58 percent of Arkansans indicated that a state lottery should be adopted to benefit education, Ritter pointed out that lottery proceeds would fall far short of the money Arkansas needs to raise. "Approximately 40 states use lotteries to supplement education funding, but that lottery revenue amounts to less than two percenta very small fraction of their elementary and secondary education budgets," he said. "A lottery definitely alone would not result ingenerate the additional resources required to adopt undertake the extensive reforms that have been the source of public discussion in Arkansas."

Another solution favored by respondents was to cut back on other government services. More than half — 54.5 percent — approved of that proposal. Yet Parry noted that in other areas of the poll, 66 percent of Arkansans indicated they’d like to see more public funds spent on roads and highways. And nearly 60 percent said that protection of the environment was so important it should take precedent over economic growth.

Education reform may have Arkansans divided in mind, but the issue of economic growth has them divided by region. A strong majority of Arkansans — 73 percent — felt that continued growth and development in their area would not hurt their quality of life. But that good news is tempered by the significant number of people — nearly a quarter of all respondents — who felt their quality of life would suffer from greater development.

Will Miller, associate professor of political science and director of the Ph.D. program in public policy, suggested that this disagreement may run along geographic lines: "It’s probable that communities experiencing an economic boom have a different feeling than those desperate for new growth," he said. "For example, Benton County respondents were significantly more likely to express concerns about growth. More than 37 percent of those individuals indicated that further development would diminish quality of life in their community."

On the other hand, respondents concerned about the effects of growth seemed certain about who should take responsibility for its cost — those who most directly profit from development. Just over 71 percent of Arkansans agreed that the government should collect "impact fees" from developers to help pay for public sewer, water, roads and other services required to support new developments.

Finally, looking on a more national level, approximately 68 percent of Arkansans favored the adoption of tougher laws to limit immigration into the United States. That’s a significant majority, Parry acknowledged, but she indicated that the number may still be inflated as a result of September 11. As this was the first year the poll collected information about immigration, no pre-attack data exist for comparison.

In addition to focusing on key issues each year, the Arkansas Poll collects annual opinion ratings on public officials. And because 2002 constitutes an election year, the poll also questioned respondents about the amendments that will appear on the November ballot. This battery of questions produced some good news for political reform in the state — Amendment 2 received an especially wide margin of support — but bad news for some of Arkansas’s public figures.

For example, approval ratings for Gov. Mike Huckabee dropped more than 20 points, from 69.9 percent in 2001 to 49.7 percent this year. Sen. Tim Hutchinson’s ratings showed a similar decline from 57.5 percent to 46.2. Even President Bush suffered a drop from 87.4 percent one year ago to 60.7 percent now — though Parry suggests that Bush’s ratings, and even those of other officials, may just be evening out from the surge of public support experienced in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

"These across-the-board losses may be explained by a number of factors," Parry said, including the economy, uncertainty about a war, and the election year itself.

"It’s not unusual for incumbents to see lower approval ratings during an election season, in part because it’s the full-time job of their opponents to point out their faults," she explained. "In addition, an election season simply leads more citizens to think critically about the performance of their elected officials. Having so many Arkansas incumbents hovering at or below the magic 50 percent mark may suggest dissatisfaction with the status quo."

In fact, Parry suspects the election cycle, compounded by current economic instabilities and post-September 11 anxiety may have impacted many of the responses people gave to this year’s poll.

At 28 percent and 25 percent respectively, the economy and education still rank as the state’s top two concerns, with the third-ranked issue (health insurance) lagging more than ten percentage points behind. Perhaps more revealing is the fact that 69 percent of Arkansans feel the state is headed in the right direction — down from 78 percent last year. And 33 percent of respondents report that they’re better off financially than they were one year ago. In 2001, nearly 41 percent made that claim.

"People are feeling insecure, and that’s coming out in our results," Parry said.

To obtain the 768 completed surveys that comprise the 2002 Arkansas Poll, the UA Survey Research Center placed just over 6,000 calls to randomly selected telephone numbers throughout the state. Once cell phone numbers, disconnected lines, business establishments and the like were taken into consideration, the resulting cooperation rate equaled 26 percent. The survey’s margin of error is +/- 3 percent.

Demographic characteristics for those who answered the survey were fairly consistent with those of the state as a whole, according to data from the 2000 Census. However, respondents to the survey rated in education and income(36 years). Women represented 57 percent of respondents. Such deviations are not unusual in polling projects, Parry said.

The 2002 Arkansas Poll is sponsored by the Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society. Results from the 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002 polls can be accessed online at http://plsc.uark.edu/arkpoll/.