Dustin Bradshaw EDL645 Kenny Richards 10/26/16 Technical Analysis: Politics and education Most of California's public still feels that education is the pathway to the American dream. Because of this belief, citizens are concemed now more than ever about the quality of public education. More than any other part of education, people would like teaching to be fixed first. Overwhelmingly people find that teachers are the ones that influence the current state of education more than principals, school boards, superintendents and the governor of California. It s understood that quality teaching matters, When students don’t receive quality teaching they can lose up to a full level of achievement in one year. Itis felt that standards need to be raised to enter the teaching profession, and remove those who currently don’t fit the mold in terms of good teaching. The problem is that there is a teaching shortage in California, and that emergency credentials are being given out to underqualified teachers. Also, tenure is being granted to those who are working at a subpar level. People generally want to just see a quality teacher in every classroom. The quality of education in California is so important to voters that 51 percent of respondents reported that they would vote against a candidate based solely on their stance on education. Some of ‘the ways in which the voters see quality teaching becoming 2 priority, is to reduce federal spending on the states which have had a poor record of academic performance in their public schools. This is also a concerning belief because it will be hard to recruit quality teachers when there is less money to go around. Another idea is to completely close down the schools that are failing and relocate student to better schools. This sounds like a good idea, but adding students to other schools could cause problems for class sizes. It could also cause issues for transportation considering that these school are probablycloser to where the students currently live. Sity-Eight percent of voters feel that there needs to be new schools constructed and existing schools modernized. | think this is a great idea because when students ‘are in modern and up to date buildings they will have more pride in their school. Studies have shown that students do better academically and behaviorally when they feel they have a good connection with their school. This, along with quality teachers could significantly improve student success in regions that need it most. Voters feel the quickest way to improve school performance is to hire new teachers and reduce class sizes. Personally | don’t think that this is the quick fix that people think itis. think that the best way to fix education is to have quality teachers at the helm that have a deep understanding of content. If every teacher has a deep understanding of content then they will be more effective at delivering the required curriculum. do believe that students can fair better with smaller class sizes and students will be less likely to fall through the cracks as they say, but if teachers don’t have a good understanding of the material they won't be effective at teaching no matter the class size.