The Millennial generation has grown up in a time of rapid change. Technological change has meant that their entire adult lives have happened alongside the rise of the internet and mobile technology. Economic change has made education after high school more essential than ever, but at the same time, tough economic circumstances for many Millennials have raised doubts for some about the value of college. Cultural change has re-shaped families and parents’ roles, with even more two-income and single-parent households trying to find ways to raise their children and make ends meet.²

As a result, the Walton Family Foundation and Echelon Insights wanted to better understand what these Millennial parents think about today’s public schools, and specifically what their expectations are for what schools will do for their children. We conducted a series of focus groups of Millennial parents in Orlando, FL, Minneapolis, MN and Richmond, VA and listened firsthand to a demographically diverse group of young parents about their hopes and dreams for their children, and the role they expect their public schools to play. Then, we conducted a representative national survey of 800 Millennial parents to better understand their expectations for the public schools, and the responsibilities they place on themselves and on the public schools.

We explored how Millennial parents think their schools are doing, and what they think schools should be doing in terms of equipping students with academic and life skills. We sought parents’ opinions on ways to measure how schools and students are doing. And we got their take on how schools should be held accountable. What they shared is examined in the pages of this report, broken out into five sections:

I. How are schools doing?

II. What should schools be doing?

III. How can we measure how students are doing?

IV. How can we measure how schools are doing?

V. How should we hold schools accountable?

Read the report here.

¹ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/04/more-than-a-million-Millennials-are-becoming-moms-each-year/

² http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/17/1-the-american-family-today/

On North Korea, American adults approve of President Trump’s handling of the situation by a margin of 44 percent to 32 percent. While the survey was largely taken before the cancellation of the June 12th summit, news coverage since has focused on efforts to reschedule the summit. In the survey, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was viewed favorably by 9 percent of Americans and unfavorably by 64 percent.

Net approval of recent Trump administration foreign policy moves extends to approval of the U.S. withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal (37 percent approve to 31 percent disapprove) and the U.S. moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem (32 percent approve to 27 percent disapprove).

When it comes to the best strategy for dealing with potential nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea, the public favors an approach evenly balanced between military leverage and diplomacy. We asked, “What do you think is more likely to persuade countries like Iran and North Korea to give up their nuclear weapons programs — the fear of U.S. military action, or diplomacy?” 21 percent said the fear of U.S. military action, 20 percent said diplomacy, and 39 percent said both equally.

New Numbers on the Russia Collusion Investigation and Trump Scandal Figures

We asked the public of their view of Russian intervention in the 2016 election. A 42 percent plurality of respondents believe Russia tried to intervene with the cooperation of the Trump campaign, whereas 21 percent said tried to intervene without the Trump campaign’s involvement. 10 percent say that Russia did not try to interfere in the election. A solid 78 percent of Clinton voters believe Russia colluded with the Trump campaign while Trump voters are more split: 45 percent say Russia tried to interfere without help from the campaign, 19 percent say Russia did not try to intervene, 14 percent said there was cooperation, and 21 percent are unsure (nearly the double the 11 percent amongst Clinton voters).

The main figures in the latest scandal coverage are unpopular with Americans. This includes Stormy Daniels (20 percent favorable to 37 percent unfavorable) and Trump lawyer Michael Cohen (13 percent favorable to 34 percent unfavorable). Opinions of Daniels lawyer Michael Avenatti were less well defined, with 16 percent viewing him favorably, 20 percent unfavorably, 29 percent saying they had never heard of him, and 34 percent neutral.

Opinions of Robert Mueller (28/26) and James Comey (25/29) were more evenly split.

Democrats Lead Generic Congressional Ballot by 7 Points

Amongst registered voters, Democrats hold a 7 point edge in the generic Congressional ballot (leading 46 to 39 percent). The Democratic advantage is due to leads amongst independents and gaps in party identification rather than any softness in the Republican ranks. While just 66 percent of Republicans who identify primarily as supporters of the party and not of Donald Trump approve of his job performance, a generic Republican candidate gets 91 percent support amongst these Republicans.

This national survey of 1,000 adults (including 813 registered voters) conducted via web panel from May 22 to May 25. Data available includes topline results and crosstabs.

What Does the Public Think About Trump’s Foreign Policy? was originally published in Echelon Indicators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Americans Are Mostly Confident Their Private Data is Secure — Except with Facebook and Credit Bureaus

Following the Cambridge Analytica revelations, fully 52% of registered voters have very little or no confidence in Facebook’s ability to secure their personal information, compared to 23% who have a great deal or a lot of confidence, and 22% who have some confidence. Facebook rates worse on this measure than the other major institution to undergo a major data incident or breach in the last year — credit bureaus (37% have no confidence or little confidence, versus 26% who have at least quite a lot).

When it comes to data protection, registered voters have the most confidence in Amazon (54% have at least quite a lot of confidence, vs. 16% who have no or little confidence), and their bank (49% to 16%), followed by Apple (37% to 23%) and Google (37% to 28%).

But Voters Think Financial Data Breaches Are Worse Than Tech Breaches

There’s another dimension to the privacy equation: How much do consumers expect their information to remain private, and how seriously would they view a hypothetical breach by a tech or financial services company? Overall, supermajorities would be at least very concerned if any of their data were compromised across both tech companies and financial institutions — with at least 61% saying they would be extremely or very concerned. But on this question, a financial data breach triggers the most concern — with both 74% rating a banking or credit bureau breach as extremely or very concerning. Tech companies are closely clustered in the rate of high concern — from a high of 66% for Amazon to a low of 61% for Apple, with Facebook somewhere in the middle at 63%.

Facebook & Financial Institutions Sit at the Privacy Risk Frontier

By combining the level of concern consumers have for their data remaining private, and their confidence in companies to keep that data private, we can plot what we call the “privacy risk frontier” — identifying which companies have the greatest downside risk in the current privacy debate.

At the Privacy Risk Frontier are companies like banks, which feature high consumer confidence in data protection with extreme concern about a potential breach if it were to occur, and companies like Facebook, where confidence is currently very low, but perceptions of risk are also somewhat lower.

Furthest from the Privacy Risk Frontier is Apple — which has touted its privacy-friendly policies in recent days. Google and Amazon are also relatively well positioned, with Amazon enjoying the highest overall level of confidence that private data will be protected.

How Closely Are Voters Following the Cambridge Analytica Scandal?

When asked how closely respondents have been following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, a majority (53%) say they have been following the story very or somewhat closely. 28% of respondents say they have not been following the story closely, while 13% have not heard of the story at all.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats report following the Cambridge Analytica scandal slightly more closely, with 62% of Democrats following the story very or somewhat closely versus 56% Republicans. The greatest partisan breakdown is reflected in 2016 leanings, with 68% of Clinton voters following the story closely and just 54% of Trump voters following the story closely.

Privacy Worries Differ Along Age and Partisan Lines

While Democrats may be watching the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook story more closely, when compared to Republicans they still have more confidence in the embattled social media giant. Fewer Republicans (25%) express confidence in Facebook than Democrats (29%) and Republicans are more concerned about the security of their information on Facebook, with 68% of Republicans extremely or very concerned, compared to 63% of Democrats. This partisan ratio flips when it comes to financial institutions — with Republicans more confident in privacy protections than Democrats.

This partisan fracture may, in part, be driven by respondents 65 and older, who consistently respond with lower levels of confidence in all tested institutions, except for banks. This is particularly pronounced on Facebook, where 45% of those 65 and older say they have no confidence in Facebook versus 28% of respondents overall and 13% of respondents 18 to 29. Similarly, populations 65 and older are distinctly more concerned over the safety of their personal data with Facebook — 53% of this group are extremely concerned, compared to 33% of respondents 18 to 29.

New National Poll: Privacy, Facebook, and Cambridge Analytica was originally published in Echelon Indicators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The wave is coming.

Will you be ready?

The Democrats’ victory in a Trump +20 district brings the fight for 2018 to a new level. Not only do Republicans need to be concerned about the 24 seats they hold in Clinton territory, but about a surge of Democratic turnout in a large number of seats Donald Trump won by a margin much narrower than in Pennsylvania’s 18th. House Republicans hold a total of 57 seats where Donald Trump lost, or won by less than 10 points, and just 114 GOP districts were redder than PA-18 in 2016.

At Echelon, we’ve been preparing candidates and groups in the fight to get ready for an environment more challenging than we’ve seen in decades. We’ve mined voter file data from all the special elections so far this cycle to understand who’s voting and who isn’t, building the most advanced 2018 turnout model in the industry. From this, we’ve developed a target audience of At-Risk Republicans — the Republicans who may have been likely to vote in a good midterm cycle like 2010 and 2014, but are at risk of staying home in 2018. Mobilizing these voters will be crucial to Republicans holding their majorities this November.

Of course, you can use our data on At-Risk Republicans to precisely target the right audience for turnout. But that’s only half the battle. We can provide you actionable insight on At-Risk Republicans that only an integrated polling & analytics firm can:

• Focus groups to meet these voters face to face, understanding their priorities and anxieties about the current state of politics
• Dedicated surveys, oversamples, & crosstab breaks in your polling or analytics tracking work, understanding their views on a range of issues and seeing their movement over time
• Advanced regression analysis of the messages that will move them from point A to point B
• Use the data to target for digital or TV advertising.

Turnout has been a major problem for Republicans thus far this election cycle. According to many independent analysts, Conor Lamb failed to clear his win number in most of the counties of the 18th district, but because the turnout came disproportionately from his strongest areas, he won anyway.

There’s no time to waste. While not every Trump +20 seat will fall, hundreds of Republican officeholders throughout the country will have a real race for the first time. Let’s talk about how our tools can give you every chance of success in 2018.

The Wave is Coming was originally published in Echelon Indicators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Teaming up with Medium Buying, we’re visualizing the battle for the 18th using Insights On Air, Echelon’s media analytics and visualization platform. Team Rick Saccone holds a 64–36% advantage in spending, but this fades to close to a 50–50 draw with Democrat Conor Lamb and his supporters when counting what this spending buys in terms of actual advertising volume. That’s because candidates can buy advertising at much more favorable rates than outside groups, and the Lamb campaign holds a 3:1 spending advantage over the Saccone campaign. As with other special elections this year, Republicans have relied more on outside groups to fuel special election advertising.

Heading into Election Day, Team Lamb has seized the share of voice advantage that Team Saccone has held throughout most of the campaign, airing an estimated 60% of spots on broadcast over the final weekend.

Any questions? To get in touch or learn more about Echelon Insights’ media analytics & visualization platform, and Medium Buying’s media buying solutions, visit MediumBuying.com or EchelonInsights.com.

The $12.7 Million Battle for the District That Doesn’t Really Exist was originally published in Echelon Indicators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

More broadly, the growing concentration of economic success in the coastal United States — in technology hubs like Silicon Valley and financial and political capitals like New York and Washington, D.C. — arguably blinded elites in those areas to Trump’s rise and led to his unexpected victory. With HQ2, will Amazon reinforce the success of cities that have already been huge winners from the technology revolution, or will it give a nod in the direction of the so-called “rise of the rest” — choosing a city outside the coasts?

To better understand the political dynamics of the HQ2 search, we decided to take a look at some political data from the 16 different U.S. media markets with an HQ2 finalist. Drawing upon our exclusive dataset of Presidential election results at the media market level, and some updated estimates of voter demographics in those areas, we tried to answer two questions: How did they vote in the 2016 election and what were the demographics of voters in these areas?

Here are the numbers:

Some takeaways from our data:

• Amazon HQ2 finalists lean more Democratic than the country as a whole and the rest of the top 50 U.S. markets who aren’t finalists. The finalist markets voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by 57 to 38 percent. Other Top 50 markets — areas that might have been realistic candidates for Amazon — leaned towards Clinton by just 3 points — 48 to 45 percent. Meanwhile, markets outside the top 50 voted for Trump by a 55 to 39 percent margin.
• But some Trump-supporting areas made the cut, with a total of 5 markets (Nashville, Indianapolis, Dallas-Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, and Columbus) supporting Trump at the media market level. Of these, Nashville was Trump’s strongest market, with a 60 to 35 percent advantage over Clinton.
• The most Democratic HQ2 market is Washington, D.C. — with a 64 to 29 percent Clinton advantage. The area has three finalists: D.C., Northern Virginia, and Montgomery County, Maryland.
• HQ2 markets became slightly more Democratic in the 2016 election, with a 2% margin swing to Clinton. That compares to a slight 0.7% swing to Trump in non-HQ2 top 50 markets and a 7.5% swing to Trump in non-Top 50 markets.
• HQ2 markets are also more racially and ethnically diverse — with a 35% nonwhite electorate in 2016, compared to 29% in other top 50 markets and 19% in non-Top 50 markets.
• Education also differentiates HQ2 markets from the rest. We estimate that 44% of all 2016 voters in HQ2 markets had a college degree, compared to 40% in other top 50 markets and 36% outside the top 50. A starker difference is seen in the ratio of white voters without a college degree — a combination of higher levels of diversity and education in HQ2 markets. Whites without a college degree were just 33 percent of all voters in HQ2 markets vs. 42 percent in the rest of the top 50 and 50 percent outside the top 50. Technology companies depend on an educated workforce, so it wasn’t surprising to find that the college education rate was the factor most statistically correlated to being selected as an HQ2 finalist.

With Americans increasingly sorting themselves politically by geography, Amazon’s HQ2 decision is likely to be scrutinized through a political lens. Here’s a quick cheat sheet of which markets lead the way along key characteristics that are relevant to who wins elections:

Most college graduates

Washington, D.C. (52%)
Austin, TX (51%)
Boston, MA (50%)

Fastest growing (by 2012–2016 turnout change)

Austin, TX (+20.5%)
Dallas, TX (+12.2%)
Miami, FL (+11.5%)

Most diverse

Miami, FL (69% nonwhite)
Los Angeles, CA (52% nonwhite)
Atlanta, GA (39% nonwhite)

Most politically balanced

Atlanta, GA (Clinton +0.2%)
Columbus, OH (Trump +1.9%)

Most Clinton voters

Washington, DC (64.2%)
Miami, FL (64.1%)
Chicago, IL (63.2%)

Most Trump voters

Nashville, TN (60.3%)
Indianapolis, IN (54.4%)
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX (53.5%)

Getting bluer

Austin, TX (11.8% swing to Clinton)
Los Angeles, CA (8.0% swing)
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX (6.8% swing)

Getting redder

Columbus, OH (6.4% swing to Trump)
Indianapolis, IN (5.4% swing)
Pittsburgh, PA (5.0% swing)

The Politics of Amazon’s HQ2 Search was originally published in Echelon Indicators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

2017 was primarily a story about one man: President Donald Trump. He was tweeted about an estimated 901.8 million times in the United States, a doubling of last year figure and nearly ten times Barack Obama’s total of 91 million his last year in office. There were only 17 days in 2017 where Donald Trump was NOT the top topic of conversation, and he was the #1 story every week for every audience. Here’s how much Trump and other top political figures were mentioned in 2017:

Donald Trump —901,757,332 mentions
Barack Obama — 164,156,373
Hillary Clinton — 123,152,913
Bernie Sanders — 48,821,611
Mike Pence — 31,414,787

To paint a vivid picture of 2017 in the news, we set aside mentions of Donald Trump from our main visualizations. But his impact is felt on the other stories that dominated conversation, from his inauguration in January, to the #1 and #2 most discussed stories of the year: the Russia investigation and the attempt to repeal Obamacare.

The most discussed news stories of 2017 on Twitter

The Russia investigation — 180,433,480 mentions
Healthcare & the Affordable Care Act — 151,581,985
Immigration — 48,024,531
Hurricanes — 43,219,262
James Comey — 41,834,011
Sexual harassment scandals — 36,626,993
China — 36,189,391
Climate change & the Paris Agreement — 31,789,203
Guns — 29,936,649
North Korea — 28,224,456

Of course, knowing how much a story was talked about can’t tell us how it was talked about, and automated sentiment analysis is notoriously unreliable. What we’ve found works better is to understand who is talking. The more one group talks about an issue, the more they feel their side is winning.

This same principle applies to the overall volume of conversation as a barometer of partisan enthusiasm. The data we’ve collected from the same core political Twitter users we’ve been tracking since well before the 2016 election offers some striking findings. The shift left that started with Trump’s election has been dramatic: where conservatives and liberals were evenly matched in their share of the conversation in the run-up to the 2016 primaries, liberals today are about twice as likely to be active as conservatives.

This is reflected in the issues being discussed, including the Russia investigation and the successful attempt to derail Obamacare repeal. While liberals have been dominant for well over a year, the one time conservatives did overtake them is notable — the weeks leading up to Trump’s surprise victory.

The online enthusiasm gap tracks with the notion of a highly engaged Democratic base that is turning out at higher rates in special elections and is poised to make gains in the midterm elections. Can Democrats sustain this advantage, or will Republicans recover? If anything changes, the digital conversation is likely to tell us first.

Explore previous versions of The Year In News for 2016, 2015, and 2014.

For more information: Echelon Insights and Optimized Listening.

The Year in News 2017 was originally published in Echelon Indicators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Using our Insights On Air competitive media analytics platform, we teamed up with Medium Buying to track $38,853,061 of general election spending over 2,685 ad flights, breaking down the rapid pace of media spending in Virginia as the race nears its conclusion.

Some takeaways from our analysis:

• Team Gillespie edges out Team Northam in overall spending for the general election through this weekend — $19,570,871 to $19,282,190 — a 50.4%-49.6% advantage.
• A near-draw in spending has translated to a 53.5–46.5% Gillespie share of voice advantage, as measured by broadcast gross rating points (GRPs) weighted to the share of the vote each media market cast in the 2013 gubernatorial election. This is primarily due to Northam’s greater reliance on the Washington, D.C. media market, where more impressions are wasted on voters in D.C. and Maryland.
• In contrast to many competitive federal elections, the paid media environment has been driven almost exclusively by the candidates themselves — who have spent more 90% of the total dollars in this race.
• Team Gillespie has led the share of voice battle for all but one day since October 18th, while Northam led earlier in the race, from September 26 to October 17. Team Northam has drawn close to parity in the final week of the campaign.
• Spending patterns match expected voting patterns, with Team Gillespie dominating media markets in the Southwest and Shenandoah Valley, and Team Northam leading in one media market, the state’s largest — Washington, D.C. Gillespie holds a slight 52–48% spending advantage in the state’s two other major markets, Norfolk and Richmond.
• Using our Predictive Spot-Level Intelligence tool, we analyzed which TV placements are preferred by each campaign. NFL football is the most popular non-news advertising destination, and one more likely to be favored by the Gillespie campaign. Late night is also a preferred spot for the Gillespie campaign — with the exception of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Consistent with other Democratic campaigns, daytime programming tends to lean towards Northam.

This analysis was produced blending competitive data from Medium Buying with spot level and pricing data from Echelon’s Insights On Air platform, which informs smarter political media targeting with precise ad placement data down to the spot level for virtually every election in the country. Learn more about us at EchelonInsights.com and more about Medium Buying at MediumBuyingLLC.com.

Media Spending Insights: Virginia Governor’s Race Nears $40 Million was originally published in Echelon Indicators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Currently, 52% of Trump Country voters believe that the country is on the wrong track while 35% believe that we’re headed in the right direction. The results are basically unchanged from last month, when 54% believed the country was on the wrong track and 34% thought we were headed in the right direction.

However, President Trump’s overall job approval has significantly improved since August. Last month, 50% of Trump Country voters disapproved of his performance while 43% approved. In September, the difference narrowed to an even 46–46% split. These changes are largely due to increased support from Republicans: in August only 76% of GOP voters approved of the President’s performance. This month 84% indicated approval, an eight point improvement.

Similarly, we find the standing of Republican congressional candidates has also improved. Republicans have a four point lead on the generic Congressional ballot, receiving 42% to the Democrats’ 38%. Last month the Democrats led 42–40%.

Additionally, we asked Trump Country about its views on President Trump’s proposed deal with Congressional Democrats to protect DACA recipients from deportation -

“President Trump is considering making a deal with Democrats in Congress to protect young adults who were brought to the US illegally as children from deportation. Democrats have agreed to increased border security in exchange, but not funding for President Trump’s proposed border wall. Based on what you’ve heard, would you say you support or oppose this deal?”

Two-thirds of Trump Country voters said they supported the deal, including 61% of Republicans and 60% of self-identified conservatives, with broad support across every demographic.

Explore the toplines and crosstabs for September’s Trump Country survey, and contact us to add a question to the October survey.

Trump Country Update: Trump Approval Bounces Back, 66% Favor DACA Deal was originally published in Echelon Indicators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Millennials — those born in the 1980s and 1990s — are increasingly becoming parents of public school students themselves, and make up the bulk of new teachers. Many recall their own experiences as students in the public schools as well. We traveled the country speaking to millennials who had recently graduated from the public schools, who had become public school teachers, and who had children of their own in the public schools.

Our report, supported by the Walton Family Foundation and FREOPP, draws on a survey and series of focus groups looking at millennial beliefs and attitudes about our K-12 system. Among our key takeaways, we found:

• Millennials believe that our public school system needs big changes, and think that creativity and flexibility are important to ensuring every student has a school that meets their needs.
• While they are not deeply familiar with the concepts like “school choice” or public charter schools, they are open to giving parents greater influenceover where their children go to school, and to let public charter schools operate in a different way than traditional public schools.
• At the same time, they are divided on what the main purpose of public schools should be, and are less open to sweeping changes in how teachers are evaluated and compensated.

We’re excited to share this report with you and to continue our work to understand America’s largest generation.

Our New Report on Millennials’ Views on the State of Education was originally published in Echelon Indicators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.