蜜桃影视

A majority of Americans hold a positive view of K-12 public school principals, who are typically seen as caring and trustworthy. How about tech executives, journalists and members of Congress? Not so much.

A Pew Research Center survey released Thursday found that of people in positions of power, while opinions improve when people feel officials behave ethically and are held accountable for their mistakes. Of the groups studied by Pew 鈥� members of Congress, local elected officials, leaders of technology companies, journalists, religious leaders, police officers, military leaders and principals at public K-12 schools 鈥� education leaders consistently ranked at the top.

When comparing against other groups, poll respondents were less likely to say principals act unethically. A larger share of respondents also felt principals face 鈥渟erious consequences鈥� for unethical behavior and that they are more likely to take responsibility for mistakes. Though principals performed better than the other groups in the study, the results weren鈥檛 entirely positive. Just 5 percent of respondents said principals act unethically 鈥渘one of the time,鈥� and 19 percent said the school leaders face 鈥渟erious consequences鈥� for their behavior 鈥渁ll or most of the time.鈥� Members of Congress were viewed as the least ethical 鈥� and the least likely to be held accountable for their actions.

These factors can color the public鈥檚 perception of their job performance, said report co-author Lee Rainie, director of internet and technology research at Pew Research.

鈥淚f you think unethical behavior is a relatively common thing in that group, then you don鈥檛 think other aspects of its work are nearly as likely to be well performed,鈥� he said.

Intuitively, respondents were more likely to say principals care about others or 鈥減eople like me,鈥� followed by police officers and military leaders. Principals are also most likely to provide fair and accurate information to the public, respondents believed, and are most likely to handle resources responsibly. Pew conducted the survey 鈥斅爐he first of its kind 鈥� between Nov. 27 and Dec. 10, 2018, through its American Trends Panel, a nationally representative group of 10,618 adults selected to complete online questionnaires. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.

More broadly, 90 percent of respondents believe military leaders do a good job preparing personnel to protect the country, and 84 percent said police officers do a good job protecting people from crime 鈥斅燼 finding with wide racial disparities. While 89 percent of white respondents said police officers do a good job protecting people from crime, 80 percent of Hispanics and 65 percent of black adults agreed.

Of the studied groups, respondents viewed the overall job performance of principals near the middle: 72 percent said principals do a good job ensuring students develop critical thinking skills. Again, members of Congress performed the worst, with 47 percent believing they do a good job promoting laws that serve the public.

As for journalists, survey respondents held mixed views. While 68 percent said journalists do a good job reporting on news in the public interest at least some of the time, just 55 percent said journalists cover all sides of an issue fairly at least some of the time. Public views on journalists were highly partisan, with 84 percent of Democrats saying journalists regularly provide fair and accurate information to the public and just 45 percent of Republicans saying they do.

Beyond the ethics argument, Rainie said another 鈥� perhaps simpler 鈥� factor could explain principals鈥� high marks. Part of public school principals鈥� better reputation over the other groups likely comes down to their closer relationships with the general population. National actors like members of the House or Senate may seem more abstract, Rainie said, while respondents likely thought about principals they鈥檝e known in their own lives when answering questions about school leaders.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a long-standing set of findings that essentially say 鈥業 and my environment are OK, everybody else isn鈥檛,鈥欌�� he said. 鈥淪o people usually say they like their local congressperson, but they don鈥檛 necessarily like Congress. They like their doctor, but they don鈥檛 like the health care system. They like their teachers, but they don鈥檛 like the education system.鈥�

Despite the overall optimism for principals, Pew did find demographic variations. Across all the questions Pew presented in the survey, women and those with college degrees gave higher scores to principals than men and those with lower educational attainment. Black respondents were more likely than white ones to say principals do a good job in ensuring students are developing critical thinking skills and take responsibility for mistakes.

And, given the polarizing nature of American public policy, researchers also observed a partisan divide in opinions on principals. But that gap was less profound than for other groups, such as police officers, military leaders and religious leaders. For example, 76 percent of Democrats said they believe principals do a good job ensuring that students develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills, versus 68 percent of Republicans.

鈥淧articularly when the issue is public schools and their performance, Democrats are somewhat more interested and somewhat more focused on those institutions than Republicans are and render somewhat better judgments about the performance of those groups,鈥� Rainie said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a pretty long-standing history of Democrats thinking somewhat better than Republicans about what鈥檚 going on in public education.鈥�

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