Americans clearly have had their fill of a sluggish economy and an unpopular war. Their frustration now may also extend to public education. This article presents the results of the second annual national survey of U.S. adults conducted under the auspices of "Education Next" and the Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) at Harvard University. In this, the authors observe a public that takes an increasingly critical view both of public schools as they exist today and, perhaps ironically, of many prominent reforms designed to improve them. Local public schools receive lower marks than they did a year ago. More significantly, perhaps, survey respondents claim that their local post offices and police forces outperform their local schools. Meanwhile, support for the most far-reaching federal effort to reform public schools--the No Child Left Behind Act--has slipped. A considerable portion of the public remains undecided about charter schools. The poll found no enthusiasm for the use of income rather than race as a basis for assigning students to schools. (Contains 11 figures.)