By Ashleigh Costello
EAGnews.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Despite a flurry of attack ads by the Obama campaign, a recent Phi Delta Kappa/ Gallup Poll found the two major party presidential candidates virtually tied among voters concerned about public education.

In the poll released this week, Romney trails Obama overall by a small margin on education, but holds a slight edge on the issue among Independents, reports the Huffington Post.

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The annual poll measured the “public’s attitudes toward the public schools.”  Registered voters were asked to choose a candidate if they “were voting solely on the basis of a desire to strengthen public schools.”

Overall, 49 percent supported Obama, while 44 percent said they would vote for Romney. But the former Massachusetts governor led Obama 46 percent to 41 percent among voters identifying themselves as independents, a key block in any presidential election.

Lily Eskelsen, vice president of the National Education Association, which has endorsed Obama, believes the close results may be due to a lack of awareness among voters of President Obama’s education policies.

“Saving teachers’ jobs to keep class size from exploding, those kinds of things don’t necessarily make headlines,” said Eskelsen. “We need to help people see the canyon of differences in education policy between the two candidates.”

There are certainly many differences between the candidates on school issues. Romney, even more than the lukewarm Obama, has embraced the education reform movement. But unlike the president, he’s has been highly critical of the role of organized labor in public schools.

Chester Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, contends Romney’s lead among independents has less to do with a lack of voter awareness and more to do with the success of public education in the state of Massachusetts.

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“I’m guessing that a good part of the reason for that is that [Romney] was governor of an educationally successful state,” said Finn, who also served in the U.S. Department of Education during the Reagan administration. “[Romney] has a track record of accomplishment that I don’t think McCain could have claimed,” he said, referring to the 2008 GOP presidential nominee.

In 2008, the same poll found that Obama led John McCain in education by 17 percentage points, which “suggests that Romney is far better positioned on this issue,” noted Finn.

The poll, which surveyed 1,002 adults by telephone in May and June, found a “nation divided” over several prominent education issues, the news site reported.

“More than ever, we sense a hardening of viewpoints on public education,” said William Bushaw, the executive director of Phi Delta Kappa International.

According to the poll, respondents found the biggest problem facing public schools to be a lack of funding, outweighing other issues such as discipline, drugs and violence.

The poll also asked respondents their views on charter schools, school vouchers, and teacher evaluations.

The majority of respondents held a favorable view of charters schools, with 66 percent saying they supported the option.  While that number is down from last year, this could be due to the fact that charter schools have become more of an educational norm and less of a novelty.

The poll also found growing support for school vouchers.  Forty-four percent of respondents indicated support for vouchers, an increase of 10 percentage points from 2011. School vouchers are prominent in Romney’s education platform.

But people were split on how teachers should be evaluated.  Fifty-two percent of respondents were in favor of including student performance on standardized tests in teacher evaluations, while 47 percent opposed the idea.

Respondents were randomly chosen from a representative sample of the nation’s demographics.  Twenty-eight percent of respondents were Republicans, 36 percent were Democrats, and 35 percent were independents.

The poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.