ATHENS, Ohio -- The adage that "familiarity breeds contempt" doesn't hold for attitudes about public schools. The people most familiar with the public schools, parents of children in school, rate the performance of public schools higher than people who do not have children in school. Furthermore, parents with children in school give their children's school still higher ratings.

This is the finding of a national survey of 1,007 adults in June by the Scripps Survey Center at Ohio University and the Scripps Howard News Service.

When asked about public schools in general in this country, 34 percent of the parents with children in school said they are doing a good job and 9 percent said they are doing a very good job. Of those who do not have children in school, 27 percent said public schools are doing a good job, and 5 percent said they are doing a very good job.

As for the school their child attends, the school they know the most about, 37 percent of the parents said it is doing a good job and 29 percent said it is doing a very good job.

Sixty-six percent of the parents with children in school support increased federal funding of education, while only 55 percent of those who do not have children in school support it.

Guido H. Stempel III, a distinguished professor emeritus of journalism at Ohio University, says the reason parents are more supportive of schools than other people is that they get first-hand information about what schools really are doing.

"People who don't have children in school get most of their information about schools from the media, and media coverage of schools is predominantly negative," he said.

The survey was directed by Thomas Hodges, director of the Scripps Survey Center; Thomas Hargrove, Scripps Howard News Service reporter, and Stempel.