Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Group members:
Tyler Toussaint
PG Santiago
Richie Black
Robby Doyle


Polling questions

1. How important is education to you?
a. Important
b. Somewhat Important
c. Not important

2. Should education be a main political issue in politics in America today?
a. Yes
b. No

3. Do you think schools in Arizona receive enough funding?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Not Sure

4. To increase education funding, money should be cut from:
a. Nowhere
b. Border Security
c. Infrastructure
d. Public Services
e. Social Services

















Most students picked "A" for question 1, which was that education is very important to them. For Question 2, about twice as many students thought that education should be a main political issue in politics today. Question 3, most students put either yes or no, but a little more put no. This shows that students are informed, or at least






















The main difference between Honors students and General Education students is that the Honors students took their education much more seriously. Although there weren't any students that said education was not important to them, more general education students said that it was "somewhat important," while almost all honors students said that it was "very important." There were more general education students than honors students that thought education should not be a main political issue, but the majority of both groups thought that it should be. More general education students think that Arizona schools need more funding, and more honors students believed that our schools receive enough funding. The majority of both groups think that funding should be cut from border security and put into education.





Question 1, Grade Level




Question 2, Grade Level






Question 3, Grade Level






Question 4, Grade Level, Answers A-D






Question 4, Grade Level, Answer E







While most of the results we obtained is fairly random, I did notice some trends within our questions, especially question 1 and 4. Question 1 had the mostly the same results across all the grade levels, the majority of people said that education was important to them, with that option always leading ahead of “somewhat important” and not important at all. This shows that despite what grade you’re in, education is either important or somewhat important, with very little not caring about it at all. Question 2 is a different story, with all the grade levels having similar results, except for grade 10. Grade 10 most likely so different from the rest because perhaps the people we chose are uninformed, or just plain had no idea, resulting in them to vote “no”, but it’s impossible to tell without actually going back and asking the sophomores why they voted that way.


Question 3 differed quite a lot, as people appear to be split on the matter of whether or not Arizona schools receive enough funding, in general freshmen believe they do not, same with the sophomores and senior crowd, but the juniors resulted showed that they believe they do receive enough funding. Similar to the analysis of question 2, the same sophomore crowd may be uninterested or under-informed regarding just how much funding the school receives. Based on how many people answered “not sure”, I’d say that each grade level has it’s share of uninformed people, and perhaps this is caused by the general lack of information that is being provided. Question 4 also has very similar results across all grade levels, and that is that money should be cut from border security to better finance education, with only a few from each level choosing the other options.


The differences between each grade level are hard to find, as most of the questions had generally the same results in the polls, meaning that I don’t think grade level generally has a strong impact on people’s opinion, as long as you are informed, you are able to make a decision despite what grade you are in. After saying this though, I think the reason of the often different sophomore choices are due to the lack of information, as you don’t really get taught anything about the financial situation of schools, all of the information is gained through personal experiences, and other political socialization methods, such as family, media, etc.









As we can see from questions 1 and 2, we can infer that both the boys and girls care about their education. from the region we live in, the parents of these childeren probably tell them to go and seek an education an have the word drilled into their head, which is good. Surveying childeren from a high school in a nice, middle to high class families, gated community, childeren from this area we see education as a strong key to sucess.
Now, Question 3 shows us some differences in women and men. For women, the majority claim to notice a lack of funding in their school. While the majority of men thought funding us enough to keep schools educating childeren at a high level. Here, many factors can be considered. Boys for example, have a tendency of caring soley for the ones around them and for themsleves.. this can lead to the things they have in front of them are the only things they can use and make the best out of it. if they are getting good grades, or for some not, they dont matter if the book is half ripped, or from a second grade class. Wmoen on the otherhand, care alot about the people around them, its just the way it is. this will cause women to look around them and see the lack funds effecting everyone in not just school but the whole country.. if someone somewhere is getting a lack of education, they will state funds in Arizona are not cut up to what it use to be. they are going to care about the good of everyone, and men will too, just not as high as girls.
Lastly, Question 4 tells alot of how region effects people decisions. Of question 4, the majority would cut border security on the girls side as well as that of the girls.. Now, why would kids from a high school in a border state near mexico, A country which illegal immigrant flow on a daily basis, say cut the spendings?Kids, can see the main issues in front of them but mostly not understand them fully. They think the best way is too cut spendings because it's to the point of madness. Do they know why? that would be a whole other survey.. but, we can see from both genders that influence on state issues can lead to an opinion. Boys probably picked border security frequently as an answer becasue they could think a much more forceful way of solving the problem... that what boys do. Girls voted as a majority for border security but not by much. most believed that it shold be where it is.. no cuts and infrastructure also made near the majority. Girls porbably mixed their areas which fundings should be cut becuase they see issues more as a spectrum and not to one issue..girls lean more to the liberal way of thinking while men lean to the conservative side.. which we can see form the conclusions to question 4's polling.
In conclusion, Men and Women often see things differently, when it comes to political stands, becuase men and women have complete different mindsets. one cares for all , while one cares for some. (Women, Men). the way men's and women's minds were set up from the day they were created can stretch to what we are looking at as a whole.. the way they respond to questions in a political issues such as educational reform.


Randomness was an important part while conducting our polling, as each of generally chose any student that we could find at four main locations, on the campus in the morning before school started, at both of the lunches, and in the library after school, and once before school. Our choices of who to poll were completely random, there was no one thing that made us choose a group of students over another group. We made sure to not poll the same person twice, and we often times tried to avoid people we knew in hopes of finding a random person who we know nothing about, and we were actually pretty successful in doing this. I feel like our group did a great job in keeping things random while choosing who to poll, and it paid off by getting a diverse amount of results and students in the mix.