Poll: Residents back school pledge

Wisconsin residents surveyed in a recent Badger Poll back the Pledge of Allegiance in schools.

In March, seven in 10 (70 percent) Wisconsin residents surveyed believed that “public school students should be required to pledge allegiance to the flag in all U.S. schools.” One in five (21 percent) did not.

The University of Wisconsin Survey Center surveyed 597 randomly selected state residents by telephone March 8-17, says G. Donald Ferree, Jr., associate director for public opinion research at survey center.

“While it is not possible directly to say what the public’ s reaction to yesterday’s court decision about the Pledge of Allegiance is, results from the first Badger Poll provide some guidance,” Ferree says.

When it comes to the pledge, the poll did not ask specifically whether residents favored the inclusion of the reference to God. The court’s decision on the pledge centered on its inclusion of the reference to God. But the poll did ask about the appropriateness of the official U.S. motto, “In God We Trust.” When reminded what the motto was, and asked whether this is appropriate or not, almost nine in 10 (88 percent) poll respondents said it was appropriate. One in eight (12 percent) did not.

“These results suggest that state residents would greet this particular judicial decision with some disapproval,” Ferree says. “That is not necessarily the same, however, as wanting it reversed, and most specifically if this were to require a constitutional amendment (assuming the Supreme Court leaves the California ruling in place).”

The reason is that opinion polls often find a reluctance to change the Constitution and a related reluctance to overturn court decisions even if individuals may not approve of them in the abstract, Ferree says.

Results from this survey have a “margin of error” of a little over +/- 4 percent. This means that, had the survey included every eligible adult in Wisconsin, there is only a one in 20 chance that the answers would differ by more than that in either direction from what has been reported. Results based on subgroups are subject to a larger margin of error.

The Badger Poll is intended to be a “poll of record” for the state, investigating matters of concern to Wisconsinites including politics, culture, and their daily lives, adhering to the highest standards of polling methodology and rigorous independence.
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