That's what people demand in their schools, according to poll

They support school choice. They want parents to have a big voice in running schools. They want the basics stressed. They want kids to show they can perform at grade level before they are promoted. They want kids to be taught social values. They want forced busing to end. They want computers in classrooms.

People in the Milwaukee metropolitan area have pretty strong feelings about some of the most pressing questions facing schools today, a survey conducted for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel shows.

On many controversial questions, there was a decisive cast to public opinion, with 60% or more of people in the metropolitan area lining up on one side.

That might be most notable in regard to Milwaukee's precedent-setting private school voucher program, which drew support of 60% of all those in the survey and even higher proportions of black and Hispanic people.

The survey focused primarily on issues that will be in the spotlight at the Journal Sentinel's Forum for Progress, cosponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Public Policy Forum. The forum, to be held Thursday at the Midwest Express Center, will feature national and local advocates and experts on education issues, including the changing nature of public schools, school/parent relations and technology in schools.

Eight hundred people in Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Waukesha and Washington counties were included in the survey, which has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points (higher for questions involving subgroups). The survey was conducted between Sept. 24 and Oct. 11 and was conducted for the newspaper by the Public Policy Forum and Lein/Speigelhoff Inc., of Brookfield.

Milwaukee's school choice program, under which the state is paying about $5,000 for each of about 8,000 low-income students in the city to attend private (including religious) schools, is one of the clearest heralds of the changing realities of publicly supported education.

Support of choice among city residents (62% in this poll) was up slightly from 60% in a Journal Sentinel poll conducted in August 1998, when the program was expanding to include religious schools.

In the new poll, 59% of people living outside of the city but in the five-county metropolitan area also said they supported the existing school choice program, even though no children from those areas are allowed to take part.

The strongest support for the voucher plan came from African-Americans (74% in favor), Hispanics (77"%), people with incomes below $11,000 a year (81%) and people with less than high school educations (81%).

The notions of expanding choice program to include all city residents, regardless of income, or to include all students in the metropolitan area, or all students in the state each drew well over 50% support. But the highest figure, 66% support, went to the idea of expanding choice to include all low-income students in the state.

People in the survey were emphatic in their support of requiring public school students to pass proficiency tests before being promoted, with 85% saying they favor it.

That is in line with a national trend against "social promotion," the widespread practice in which students are passed onto the next grade without mastering appropriate subjects. It has become a popular cause nationally. In Milwaukee Public Schools, students are being required to demonstrate proficiency in several areas to pass eighth grade, as of this year. People in the metropolitan area also expressed a definite preference for having schools stress basics.

Asked which statement reflects their views, 55% chose "schools need to focus on the basics, like reading, writing or math," while 38% chose "schools need to teach a broader range of subjects because the world is getting more complex."

Perhaps still influenced by the aftermath of the Columbine High School killings in Colorado in April, people in the poll attached strong importance to developing positive character traits among students. Asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 how important different educational goals were, "preparing students to be good citizens," got a rating of 4.59, a notch higher than "preparing students to succeed in college" (4.55) and "preparing students to succeed on the job" (4.57).

And 83% of the people in the poll said they agree with the statement: "Schools have a responsibility to reduce violence among youths."

People gave indications that they were mildly satisfied with how schools are doing in developing the students' character.

Asked to give grades for how well the schools in their own community are doing on teaching "the values you believe in," 10% gave an "A" and 33% a "B." Six percent gave an "F" and 14% a "D." Ten percent did not give a grade.

And what are those valves? Asked to assign a number to how strongly they felt about whether a variety of values or subjects should be taught, people gave the highest rating to self-discipline, caring for others, peaceful ways to resolve personal conflicts and acceptance of people of different races and ethnic backgrounds. People in the survey rated having the most recent computer technology in a classroom as more important than having children attend racially integrated schools or schools that teach "religious values like your own."

By a 72% to 24% margin, people said they favored placing more computers in the classroom, even if that would require additional tax dollars.

At the same time, 55% of people with children in school said they felt their child's school had enough computers, while 38% said there were not enough.

POLL RESULTS Do you favor or oppose the current Milwaukee school choice program? Five-county area, 60% favor, 36% Oppose; City of Milwaukee, 62% Favor, 35% Oppose; African-Americans, 74% Favor, 24% Oppose; Hispanics, 77% Favor, 15% Oppose; Whites, 56% Favor, 40% Oppose. Source: Journal Sentinel poll. Jody Mitori, Journal Sentinel