Chapter 1: How the Networks Cover Education: Schools Are Not the Media’s Pet

For the last several years, political pollsters have been telling us about the “gender gap,” the 10 to 15-point difference between men and women in their attitudes toward Ronald Reagan.

But more recently, as William Schneider documents in his article in this issue, pollsters have uncovered an even bigger “gap” in public opinion, a gap far more relevant to educators. Let’s call this one the “user gap.”

The user gap involves attitudes toward American education. In simplest terms, the user gap describes the significant difference in confidence toward the public school system between those (the users) who have contact with the schools through their children and those who do not.