A survey conducted earlier this year by the NIU Public Opinion Laboratory showed that 58 percent of the people surveyed would be willing to pay an additional $25 a year to maintain the current service levels of higher education standards.

It also showed that residents are concerned the quality of K-12 education is slipping.

“School funding has been on voters’ minds,” said Michael Peddle, who oversaw the survey. “The surveys really seem to give them a reason to pay attention.”

The surveys covered a wide variety of topics facing Illinois residents, including the state budget, education, taxes and health care.

“Legislators do pay attention to the surveys,” Peddle said.

Interviews were conducted over the telephone to men and women 18 years of age and older, with 1,262 respondents and a 95 percent confidence interval.

The interviewing portion was conducted by the opinion laboratory between November 2003 and January 2004. The lab is made up of about 30 interviewers. The state is broken up into six regions and is then reweighted to represent the state and attain the desired confidence interval.

Results take about a month to tabulate. Two or three people, including Peddle, go through the survey in depth to get the results.

“It is very definitely a long process to put it all together,” Peddle said. “We try to get 200 people in the different areas of the state, and some surveys are done in Spanish, too.”

Peddle is in his first year overseeing the surveys but has been involved with the process for 15 years.

“We have done these since 1984,” Peddle said. “We do these in an effort to inform public policy makers.”

Within the next few weeks, the survey results will be posted online at www.cgsniu.org.