Poll Finds Californians True Feelings on Race & Education

USC Dornsife and the LA Times have collaborated in conducting statewide polls for years. They cover subjects from immigration and politics to trend topics such as asking people if they’ve read a book in the past month.

In their most recent survey of more than 1,500 Californians, they found out peoples’ true feelings regarding race relations between one another as well as law enforcement and how they feel about education tenure.

The survey found that most Californians feel race relations are better in California than in the rest of the United States. They particularly feel positive about the way different races interact within their own smaller communities. Dan Schnur, Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, said that this largely reflects the comfort people feel with other races when they actually get to know them on a personal level.

With the wide diversity in California, people are exposed to a multitude of ethnicities. The fact that this poll reflects that people feel positive about the diversity in their neighborhoods and in California is encouraging for the long-lasting societal stride towards equality.

The survey also found that in particular, young Californians, ages 18-29, are most optimistic about race relations in general. This reflects the newer generations adaptations to diversity and ultimately, growth towards acceptance of one another despite color.

The poll went deeper into race relations, asking questions on how people felt about law enforcement interaction with different races. It found that the number of Californians that think police are tougher on African Americans has increased by 10% in the past few months. This has an extremely interesting correlation with the heavy media attention on alleged police brutality regarding race. In the past 5 months, society has been exposed to a multitude of police-involved killings regarding African Americans all over the country and there has been a strong movement of protests against it. Evidently, this has had a large influence on how people all over the United States are moved to feel a certain way towards the issue of law enforcement racism.

In addition to race, the survey also asked questions regarding education--specifically tenure, which is seniority based layoffs of public school teachers.

Thirty-eight percent of Californians say they believe teachers should not be granted tenure. Thirty-five percent said tenure should only be granted for teachers who have been working for 4-10 years. That's nearly 70% that don't support current teacher tenure that grants teachers job security after one year.

Job security is a generally a positive thing, but this tenure plan also makes it more difficult to fire poor-performing teachers. On the heels of last June’s Vergarav. California ruling that found teacher layoffs based on seniority to be unconstitutional, the poll shows that Californians also seem to reject the notion that teachers should be laid off based on seniority.

I understand this issue on a more personal level. My mom was the secretary at my elementary school and remained there until my junior year of college. She went to school to be a teacher when I was a child, but there were never any job openings in the districts near our home. While she was secretary, they were laying of teachers with up to 12-years experience. The layoffs started with the newest teachers and each year sent pink slips to teachers with the least experience—all the way up to 12 years. After receiving her teaching credentials, my mom was very discouraged because there was no way she would be hired when my own kindergarten teacher was getting fired as I was graduating high school.

The survey found that people recognize this as a broken system for education. When asked how California schools should lay off teachers when necessary, 53% said teachers who receive poor marks in their classroom observations should be the first to go.

Twenty-six percent said teachers whose students didn’t make enough progress on standardized tests throughout the year should be laid off first. As a fairly recent student in the public school system, I think this is an awful idea because students don’t take standardized tests seriously. No one wants to take them and they end up bubbling answers in randomly due to the fact that score won't reflect on their report cards. Students don’t necessarily understand that their test scores determine their schools’ API score and in turn how neighborhoods and colleges will look at that school in terms of academic performance. The other side of this is the level of motivation for children in poverty stricken neighborhoods with high crime or gang rates. These kids may not care enough to score well on standardized tests—is it really logical for the teachers that dedicate their careers to helping children in these neighborhoods be fired for this?

The answer in regards to how layoffs should be handled is not a definite one. As for California overall, only 8% felt layoffs should first target the teacher with the least seniority or classroom experience which makes it clear that tenure is not the way to go.

Overall, polls like this are extremely beneficial to everyone as a society. The first step to change is acknowledging.