It is not the kind of atmosphere most adults would find helpful if they needed to study and learn-high dropout rates, kids promoted without learning, schools short on money, profanity and disrespect, fighting, drug and alcohol abuse. Yet these are "very serious" problems in schools, according to surprisingly large numbers of the nation's black and…

This is the fourth in a series of reports from Reality Check 2006, an ongoing set of tracking surveys on education issues. Reality Check surveys attitudes among public school parents, students, teachers, principals and superintendents on a regular basis. In surveys on education, it is not uncommon for the public, parents and teachers to see…