Poll finds Nashville voters support raising taxes to give teachers a raise and expanding school choice

A new poll of likely Davidson County voters found strong support for raising teacher pay, even if that meant raising taxes.More than 56 percent of those polled said they’d support an increase in property taxes to pay for teacher raises. Just under 32 percent said they wouldn’t support a tax hike.Polled residents also placed increasing pay at the top of their priorities for additional education investments. More than 46 percent of those polled listed teacher pay raises as their highest educational priority.That’s more than that the combined number who chose increased support for after school and summer programs, increasing the number of nurses and counselors, and increasing support for at-risk students as their top priority.VictoryPhones conducted the poll on behalf of Tennesseans for Student Success (TSS) between May 2 and May 4 by polling 500 likely Davidson County voters. The Tennessee Firefly receives funding from Tennesseans for Student Success.The polling has a margin of error of 4.38 percent.Respondents listed positions on education as the top priority guiding their vote in the upcoming mayor’s race and most of those voters want more options for school choice.Nearly 54% of those polled said they support giving parents more options to choose which public school their child attends. Less than 29% said they don’t support giving parents more school choice options.The polling is in direct contrast with a number of recent decisions by Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) and its Board of Education to hinder school choice.MNPS faced criticism of “playing politics” with students last November when administrators decided to exclude public charter schools from the district’s annual celebration of schools.  Board members followed that move this year by voting down three high-quality applications to expand school choice with new public charter schools, including one proposed by a former MNPS student.Voters were not polled on those decisions, but the MNPS Board of Education ranked low when it comes to who voters trust to make the right decisions.Only 1 percent listed the school board as the most trusted, the lowest of any option in the poll and below its margin of error.The poll also showed one change the district could make that has broad support from voters.More than 86 percent of those polled support increasing funding for skilled trades and vocational education.This topic played an important role in Tuesday’s televised mayoral debate on Nashville station WKRN.  Participating candidates were asked how they’d help more young residents on the path to skilled trades.Multiple candidates responded by saying Nashville needs to invest in more technical training programs.“In MNPS we should have the premier technical training program in the country. We need to invest in that.  We also need to invest in apprenticeship programs,” said businessman Jim Gingrich.“Given the aging of the workforce in Nashville there’s gonna be a huge shortage of plumbers, electricians, a lot of the building trades. We absolutely need to be investing,” said affordable housing and economic development leader Matt Wiltshire.“Everyone is not going to college, or don’t want to go to college just say that, so we have to give them options,” said Davidson County Property Assessor Vivian Wilhoite. “I would want those type of programs to be included in contracts when it comes to incentives and what have you, apprenticeship programs and those type of training, vocational type of opportunities that will be made available to our area 86 thousand students in Metro Nashville Public Schools.”Senator Heidi Campbell, D-Nashville, complimented the skilled trade programs Metro Nashville Public Schools and the state are already providing while Metro Councilman Freddie O’Connell said he’d provide more support for existing programs like Nashville GRAD, Music City Construction Careers, and the POWER of Youth Summer Employment Initiative, and Project Return as mayor.“All of these things are dots that can be connected more forcefully.” said O’Connell. “The process of workforce development is one of the critical jobs of the mayor alongside economic development broadly.”“I think it’s good to take a moment to really applaud this component of our city and our state frankly. And actually, our state government, this is one place where they’re getting it right.  They’re very very focused on workforce development,” said Senator  Campbell.Other candidates, including State Senator Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, and Metro Council Member Sharon Hurt discussed the work they’ve done to create apprenticeships for young workers.“I’ve worked with the last two governors and the Commissioner of Labor and Workforce Development to make sure that we do have pathways for apprenticeships between our high schools and employers to make sure that there are better pathways for our technical schools and I think that this is a place that the mayor should really be making a priority,” said Senator Yarbro.“At Jump I started the very first workforce development program that we had under Mayor Karl Dean and we had Nashville State as one of our partners that actually put over 500 people to work,” said Hurt. “I know that it works and we have to give alternatives to our citizens.”Former Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development Assistant Commissioner Alice Rolli also referenced her prior work helping provide free community college for Tennessee students and she said as mayor she’d focus on solving the challenges of trade teacher certifications.“Here’s the next bottleneck we have to deal with at the state level, and that’s around the certification of trade teachers in our high schools. We are not alone in Metro Nashville in that challenge and working regionally we can actually tackle that problem,” said Rolli.