Boston voters overwhelmingly support a fundamental restructuring of the city’s Public School Committee, a recent survey by Poll Progressive found.
In a poll of 480 voters across the city of Boston, Poll Progressive found that 60% of voters supported changing to an elected school committee, while only 14% of respondents opposed such a switch. Just over a quarter had no opinion.
“Our results underscore a widespread demand for change here in Boston,” said David Fadul, the communications strategist for Poll Progressive. “Support for an elected committee was high in nearly every demographic tested, especially amongst black and Hispanic respondents. It appears that attitudes have shifted dramatically since the issue was last decided in the 1990s."
The Boston Public School system has been plagued reports of rampant racial inequality in recent years, an issue that was inflamed last month when former BPS Committee chairman Michael Loconto resigned following his racist remarks to parents on a public call. A switch from an appointed committee to an elected one would represent a massive transfer of power away from the mayor, whose current control of the appointment process gives them vast influence over school policy. Boston is the only city in Massachusetts with an appointed committee system.
Poll Progressive is a minority and woman-owned polling and consulting firm dedicated to providing low-cost services to leftist candidates and campaigns. This poll was conducted in English from December 15-17, 2020, using SMS text-to-web survey methodology. The sample consisted of 480 likely voters in Boston, and was weighted by gender, age, and ethnicity to be representative of voters in the City of Boston. The poll has a margin of error of +/-4.4%. Results can be found below: