Did you attend public schools if so, in what grades?
If you did, what did you consider positive about the experience and what was lacking?
How much of what was positive and what was lacking do you think was an inherent aspect of public education and how much was particular to your individual school, neighborhood, community, city or state?
If you had friends or knew people attending private schools at the same level, what
differences were you aware of?
Which of these do you consider positive and which negative? Of the positive, how do you think public schools could be changed to include those?
If you attended only private schools, did you have friends in public schools? If so, what difference in
both positive and negative were you were aware of?
Have you ever taught in a public school? If so, what was positive and
what was negative about that experience?
If you also taught in a private school, how would you compare those experiences?
Have you been or are you currently a parent with children in public school? If so, how aware have you been of what happens or happened to your child in school?
What do you consider both positive and negative in their public school education?
As a parent were you are you currently active and trying to make any changes to the curriculum or any other
aspects of school life?
What do you think are the most important elements of elementary, high school, and college education?
To what extent do you think public educational institutions are delivering on educating students in these areas?
To the extent that they may be failing to do so, do you believe this is a matter of insufficient funding, bad curriculum choices on a state or district level, a poor system for choosing teachers, or archaic ideas about how to educate people?
How do you feel about your money going to fund education when you have no children in the public schools?
Do you think education should be publicly funded at all. If so, why?
If not, why not?
If you think it should be publicly funded, do you think this funding should come through local taxes, state, taxes, or federal taxes?
One thing public education does is keep young people out of the workforce. Do you consider this positive or negative and why?
Historian Page Smith has observed that one of the unique things about America is that from the beginning,
it was a place where fathers demanded that their daughters be educated. What difference do you think this has made in us as a nation, socially, culturally and politically?
Are you in favor of extending public education to undocumented immigrants? If so, why.
If not, why not?
Have you ever served on a local school board? Did you consider that a positive or negative experience and why?
What do you know about how the federal Department of Education, your state Department of Education and your local school board operate?
From what you know, what changes would you like to see?