A new statewide poll shows 72 percent of Marylanders support moving the start of the school year to after Labor Day and that most who have heard of the Purple Line project support its construction.
Goucher College’s Department of Political Science and International Relations asked 619 residents about a number of prominent state political issues and the presidential ambitions of three Marylanders.
Seventy-two percent of respondents said they support Comptroller Peter Franchot’s controversial effort to move the start of the school year to after Labor Day. Nineteen percent of respondents opposed the idea and 9 percent said they didn’t know or refused to answer.
Franchot, a Montgomery County resident, has argued the move would boost the tourism industry in vacation hubs such as Ocean City and Deep Creek Lake.
State and local education officials are opposed to the idea, cautioning that moving the start of school after Labor Day could push the end of the school year well into June or even July if there are enough weather closures. Montgomery County Board of Education President Patricia O’Neill has argued school scheduling decisions should be left up to local school districts.
Franchot’s office highlighted the poll numbers on Wednesday in a press release. A State Senate bill that would ban public school districts from starting school before Labor Day is scheduled for a committee hearing on Thursday afternoon in Annapolis.
“Building on the considerable momentum of our grassroots, citizen-led effort to ‘Let Summer be Summer,’ today’s Goucher poll once again demonstrates the overwhelming public support across all demographic, geographic and party lines to start Maryland public schools after Labor Day,” Franchot said in the press release. “Beyond the obvious benefits this commonsense adjustment would have for students and teachers, families, small businesses and farmers, the vast majority of Marylanders believe as I do, that starting school after Labor Day just makes sense.”
The Goucher Poll also asked respondents about the Purple Line, the light rail project that would run from Bethesda to New Carrollton and include stops in Chevy Chase Lake, Silver Spring and College Park.
Gov. Larry Hogan and administration officials are considering whether to move ahead with the $2.45 billion project, which was scheduled to start construction late this year.
Fifty-three percent of respondents said they had heard “nothing at all” about the project. Of those who had heard at least “a little” about it, 70 percent said they support its construction.
Sixty-four percent of those who had heard at least “a little” about the Red Line light rail project in Baltimore said they support its construction.
Half of respondents said the state government should focus more on improving roads and highways while 45 percent said the state should focus more on improving public transportation.
Thirty-one percent said they think former Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley should run for president in 2016, a 12-percent bump compared to the fall 2014 Goucher Poll.
Twenty-two percent said former Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich should run and 30 percent said retired neurosurgeon and conservative author Ben Carson should run.
The poll was conducted from Feb. 15 to Feb. 19.
