FDU Poll: NJ Residents Support Later High School Opening Times

For Immediate Release

Contact:                           

Dan Cassino 

Executive Director, FDU Poll    

973.896.7072/ dcassino@fdu.edu

NJ Residents Support Later High School Opening Times

Democrats, women most supportive of proposal to push start back to 8:30

Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, February 10, 2023 – A bill currently being considered by the state legislature to push back high school start times has the support of a majority of New Jersey residents, with women and Democrats being the most likely to say that they favor it. According to the latest results from the FDU Poll, 55 percent of residents say that they favor the measure, with 30 percent opposed.

“A lot of politics is about big picture, symbolically powerful measures that let elected officials send a signal about their priorities to voters,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics at FDU, and the director of the poll. “But it’s smaller measures like this that often do more to impact people’s everyday lives.”

The bill, S2462 in the State Senate and A3816 in the State Assembly, was referred to the Education Committee in the Senate and Assembly last year. The sponsors of the bill argue that later start times will help teenagers get more sleep; lack of sleep among young people is considered to be a chronic problem. Opponents have argued that pushing start times back could impact high school athletics: during some months, a later start time could mean that practice times would continue after sunset. The rule would apply to all schools – including charters and vocational schools – that receive state aid. All of the bill’s sponsors and co-sponsors in both chambers are Democrats.

Support is highest among Democrats (65 percent), with Republicans evenly split on the issue (42 percent supporting, 42 percent opposing). Women (62 percent) are also more likely to support the measure than men (48 percent). A substantial number (15 percent) of residents say that they’re not sure where they stand on the issue, or refuse to answer the question.

“When people don’t know much about an issue, they fall back on their partisanship to figure out what they should think about it,” said Cassino. “In a case like this, where there isn’t a clear partisan stance, a lot of people wind up not knowing what to think.”

Interestingly, there is no difference in support for the bill between residents who say that they currently have children living with them at home, and those who do not. Support is 56 percent among residents with minor children living with them, and 54 percent among those without children.

Methodology

The survey was conducted between February 1 and February 6, 2023, using a certified list of adult New Jersey residents carried out by Braun Research of Princeton, New Jersey. Respondents were randomly chosen from the list, and contacted via either live caller telephone interviews, or text-to-web surveys sent to cellular phones, resulting in an overall sample of 808 respondents. 235 of the surveys were carried out via live caller telephone interviews on landlines, and the remainder (573) were done on a web platform via weblinks sent via SMS to cell phones, or via live caller cell phone interviews. Surveys were conducted only in English.

The data were weighted to be representative of the population of adult NJ residents, as of the 2020 US Census. The weights used, like all weights, balance the demographic characteristics of the sample to match known population parameters. The weighted results used here are balanced to match parameters for sex, age, education and race/ethnicity.

SPSSINC RAKE, an SPSS extension module that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using the GENLOG procedure, was used to produce final weights. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis helps to ensure that the demographic characteristics of the sample approximate the demographic characteristics of the target population. The size of these weights is used to construct the measure of design effects, which indicate the extent to which the reported results are being driven by the weights applied to the data, rather than found in the data itself. Simply put, these design effects tell us how many additional respondents would have been needed to get the weighted number of respondents across weighted categories: larger design effects indicate greater levels of under-representation in the data. In this case, calculated design effects are approximately 1.3.

All surveys are subject to sampling error, which is the expected probable difference between interviewing everyone in a population versus a scientific sampling drawn from that population. Sampling error should be adjusted to recognize the effect of weighting the data to better match the population. In this poll, the simple sampling error for 808 residents is +/-3.5 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence interval. Including the design effects, the margin of error would be +/-4.6 percentage points, though the figure not including them is much more commonly reported.

This error calculation does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question wording, differences in translated forms, or context effects. While such errors are known to exist, they are often unquantifiable within a particular survey, and all efforts, such as randomization and extensive pre-testing of items, have been used to minimize them.

Weighted Telephone Sample Characteristics

808 New Jersey Residents

Figures are weighted to overall voter characteristics from the 2020 US Census. Respondents who refused to answer a demographic item are not included.

Man                                 47%                 N = 381

Woman                             51%                 N = 412

Some Other Way           2%                  N = 15

18-30                           17%                N = 136

31-44                           29%                 N = 232

45-64                           33%                 N = 264

65+                               21%                 N = 168

Democrat (with leaners)              50%                 N = 357

Independent                                  15%                 N = 110

Republican (with leaners)           35%                 N = 246

White                                            55%                N = 443

Black                                               11%                N = 92

Hispanic/Latino/a                                      18%                N = 145

Asian                                        9%                  N = 69

Other/Multi-racial                                     2%                  N = 15

No college degree                       55%                N = 447

College degree or more              45%                N = 350

Question Wording and Order

NJ1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Phil Murphy is handling his job as governor?

1. Approve
2. Disapprove
3. Not Sure/Don’t Know [Vol]
4. Refused [Vol]

NJ2. I’m going to describe some bills that might be considered by the state legislature this year. For each, tell me whether you would support that bill, oppose that bill, or if you don’t know.

1. Currently, high schools in New Jersey start as early as 7:30 in the morning. One bill would require that high schools at 8:30 or later. Students would stay later to get the same amount of class time.
2. Support bill
3. Oppose bill
4. Not sure
5. Don’t Know [vol]
6. Refused [vol]

[NJ2B-NJ6 Held for future release]

I’m going to read you the names of some people who might run for Governor of New Jersey in the next election. Some are already well known, and some aren’t. For each, tell me if you’ve heard of them, and, if you have, whether you have a positive or negative view of them.

[Respondents are randomly assigned to get the candidates in order A or B]

Order A:

1. Newark Mayor Democrat Ras Baraka
2. Republican State Senator Holly Schepisi
3. Former Republican Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli
4. Jersey City Mayor Democrat Steven Fulop
5. [Democratic/Republican] [Mayor/Assemblywoman] Paula Hawkins*
6. [Democratic/Republican] [Mayor/Assemblyman] Vance Kassebaum*
7. Current first lady Democrat Tammy Murphy
8. Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill
9. Republican Talk Show Host Bill Spadea
10. Republican State Senator Mike Testa
11. Lieutenant Governor Democrat Sheila Oliver
12. Former Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney

Order B:

1. Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill
2. Republican State Senator Holly Schepisi
3. Current first lady Democrat Tammy Murphy
4. [Democratic/Republican] [Mayor/Assemblywoman] Paula Hawkins*
5. Lieutenant Governor Democrat Sheila Oliver
6. Newark Mayor Democrat Ras Baraka
7. Former Republican Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli
8. Jersey City Mayor Democrat Steven Fulop
9. [Democratic/Republican] [Mayor/Assemblyman] Vance Kassebaum*
10. Republican Talk Show Host Bill Spadea
11. Republican State Senator Mike Testa
12. Former Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney

[Hawkins and Kassebaum are made up names, used as baselines. They are randomly assigned across Dem/Rep and Mayor/Assembly Member]

For each:

C1. Have you heard of [insert name here]?

1. Yes
2. No
3. Refused [vol]

C2. [If C1 is “yes”] Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of them, or do you not know enough about them to have an opinion?

1. Favorable
2. Unfavorable
3. Don’t know enough to have an opinion
4. Refused [vol]

Release Tables