1 Note that significant educational policy events occurred before this period, including expansion of school choice programs involving private school options in Arizona (March 28, 2006), Wisconsin (March 10, 2006) and Ohio (March 30, 2006). These events may have affected respondents’ answers. Note, however, that participants were asked about professional opinion and their organizations’ positions on long-standing policy issues that are unlikely to be drastically affected by nearly synchronous events. See Robert D. Putnam, et al., "Attitude Stability among Italian Elites," American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Aug. 1979), 463-494.
2 The SPN conference focused on tax reform and primary and secondary education reform. Contact information for conference attendees was obtained through SPN’s conference records.
3 The standard margin of error for a sample of this size is six percentage points. However, this survey is unusual in many ways. First, the respondents are not drawn as a probability sample from a larger population. The survey attempted to canvass the opinions of all organizations relevant to the school choice movement. There is no way to determine, therefore, a margin of error. The universe of organizations from which this sample is drawn is only about double that of the number of respondents, however, and a full census is within the range of possibility with a follow-up survey to address concerns regarding response bias. Second, this is a survey of organizational and professional opinion concerning policy issues, and we should therefore expect more stability and consistency in these responses than among the general public. We can therefore be more confident in the responses of the organizations that did participate (see footnote No. 1 above).
4 See the questions beginning on Page 16.