WebQuest
PUBLIC
EDUCATION:
IS IT
FIXABLE?
Roger Dennis
School for
Excellence
Social
Studies
INTRODUCTION
How
effective is public education in
There
is an old saying that goes, "figures don’t lie, but liars figure". I
remember when I worked at
One
of the things that you will learn as you get older is that politics and
bureaucracy are very powerful, and they can be very ugly. You will also learn
about the battle between reality and idealism. If you are a
thinking and a caring person you will have to fight this battle virtually
every day of your life.
There
is a lot of beauty in this world of ours, and a lot of ugly too. There is a lot
of sickness. You all are young; you have your entire lives ahead of you.
Hopefully long lives, but the way things are going now, maybe not. This is a
crucial time in history. Mankind, or rather humankind, is at a crossroads. Will
Mother Earth survive? Will humanity survive?
Believe
it or not, a healthy public school system, in
What IS a
healthy public school system?! That’s what you
have to decide.
Here is the situation:
You
have just been made Regional Director of High Schools for a small area that
borders East Harlem and
The
large majority of the students and teachers in your new school district ‘can’t
wait for
So
here is your assignment. Taking into account what you have already learned in
the past couple of weeks, i.e. from the project about democracy in education
and the work and discussions about the state of this school, and from the new
information you will be introduced to in the websites below, you are to
redesign the school system you are now in charge of.
For
the purposes of this assignment you will not have to worry about buildings. In
your district there is a building that can effectively hold three thousand
students. There are two buildings that can hold fifteen hundred, and two
buildings that can hold 750 students. There are four buildings that can serve
five hundred students, four buildings that can be used by three hundred, ten
buildings that can handle 100 students, and there are 25 spaces that can be
utilized by twenty-five students. All these buildings are in good shape, and
they are all easily accessible by subway or bus.
You
will have one thousand good computers available, including two hundred laptops.
There are five hundred old but workable computers that were donated by a
midtown corporation. You have thirty vcr’s and
thirty-five televisions, 100 small audio tape recorders, and a fair supply of
other (not particularly sophisticated) technological equipment. You have an
adequate amount of everyday school supplies available.
All
the buildings that can serve five hundred or more students have good athletic
facilities (I know, I know, we’re doing some pretending in parts of this
exercise). Two of the 300 capacity buildings have good athletic facilities, but
no other small buildings or small spaces do. Approximately one third of the
smaller spaces have good parks nearby, i.e. spaces where you can run around,
play basketball, handball, etc.
You
have twelve million dollars a year to pay your staff. Principals earn $100,000
per year, assistant principals get $80,000. ‘Teachers-in-charge’, who may
operate as principals or assistant principals, earn $72,500 per year.
Licensed/certified teachers, counselors, and social workers earn $60,000 per
year, unlicensed/uncertified teachers, counselors, and social workers earn
$50,000. At least 50% of your teachers/counselors/social workers must be
licensed or certified. Secretaries, paraprofessionals, any other staff you want
to hire will earn $30,000 per year. The city pays for you to have eight
security officers and six custodians – in other words these fourteen workers do
not come out of your budget. Part-time staff are paid
$30 per hour, guest speakers (unless they agree to volunteer their services)
cost $150 per day.
TASK
You
are to write a five to ten page typewritten paper (it can be longer) indicating
your educational philosophy and mission, and all the specifics of how your
school district will run. You will either answer these questions precisely, or
you will indicate the processes that will be used to find the answers to these
questions. Which size buildings will you use? How will you determine in which
building your students will be ‘housed’? How many students do you hope to have
enrolled in your district? Will there be a uniform curriculum, or will it vary?
What will the curriculum/s be? Will you have extra-curricular activities? Will
you have anything to do with the 1,000 students who have already dropped out?
What will you expect of your students, your teachers and other workers, etc.?
Is there to be a dress code? What will be your admissions process? How will
school operating rules be decided? Who will make the rules? How will
rule-breakers be dealt with? What role will parents have? Community
members? How many teachers will you hire? Counselors?
Social workers? Other staff?
What roles will these other staff fulfill? Will you use volunteers? If so, who
will they be and how will you get them? Do you plan to reach out to any
particular people, or groups of people? Who? How will you do this?
How
creative will you be? Are you going to think and act ‘outside of the box’, or
will it be the ‘same ol same ol’?
You
will also use the TIPS Public Policy Analyst to record your research and ideas.
PROCESS
Your assignment:
1. As you prepare the various parts of this
Web Quest, make sure to summarize your research and ideas on the following six
TIPS Public Policy worksheets: Read the instructions on each web page. Then
complete the worksheets using the internet links in the resource section and
other outside text material. You will use these worksheets as resource material
for completing your task.
TIPS Worksheet 1:
Defining the Problem
TIPS Worksheet 2:
Gathering evidence of the problem
TIPS Worksheet 3:
Identifying causes of the problem
TIPS Worksheet 4: Evaluating existing
public policy solutions
TIPS Worksheet 5:
Developing original public policy solutions
TIPS Worksheet 6:
Choosing the best public policy solution
2.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: For the remainder of this assignment you MUST
keep a journal of all that you are thinking and feeling as you read through the
web sites below!!
3.
You will access all these websites, read the articles AND all the highlighted
links:Go to and read article entitled ‘School Savings as a matter of
course’.
Go to and read ‘Creating Challenging and Engaging Curriculum’ and
additional highlighted articles.
4. Go to http://sudval.org/
and read those two paragraphs.
5. Go to http://sudval.org/texts/kingdom.html
and read ‘
6. Go to http://sudval.org/texts/bac2basc.html
and read ‘Back to Basics’.
7. Optional:
Go anywhere you want to on this site.
8. Go to http://www.albanyfreeschool.com/overview.shtml
and read the overview.
9. Go to http://www.albanyfreeschool.com/internships.shtml
and look at the picture.
10. Go to http://www.albanyfreeschool.com/endowments.shtml
and look at the picture.
11. Go to http://www.albanyfreeschool.com/endowments.shtml
and look at the pictures.
12. Go to http://www.albanyfreeschool.com/press.shtml
and read the second article, “Students Feel Slaves’ Fearful Flight.”
13. Go to http://www.metcenter.org/
and read the first paragraph.
14. Now click on “each student’s curriculum” and
“projects in real world settings.” Read
these.
15. Go to http://www.bigpicture.org/images&portfolio/MET_Portfolio_Real_World.pdf
and read those four pages.
16. Go to http://www.liberty-school.org/. Read this page and check
out, at the bottom of the page, their zine, “The Fertile Turtle.”
17. Go to http://educationrevolution.org/. All the schools you have visited are on this
site. Go wherever you want to go. Enjoy.
Spend as much or as little time on this as you choose.
RESOURCES
Also, read the following websites thoroughly. Go to the links
and see what you have been missing:
http://sudval.org/texts/kingdom.html
http://sudval.org/texts/bac2basc.html
http://www.albanyfreeschool.com/overview.shtml
http://www.albanyfreeschool.com/internships.shtml
http://www.albanyfreeschool.com/endowments.shtml
http://www.albanyfreeschool.com/press.shtml
http://www.albanyfreeschool.com/publications.shtml
http://www.bigpicture.org/images&portfolio/MET_Portfolio_Real_World.pdf
http://educationrevolution.org/
EVALUATION
An
"A" paper meets all of the criteria mentioned above, and it is
superior and/or exceptionally engaging. In addition the paper may draw upon any
number of factors: maturity of style, effectiveness of argument, use of
literary and/or rhetorical devices, depth of discussion, sophistication of wit
or quality of imagination.
A
"B" paper is clearly adequate. The prose is able to convey the
writer’s ideas, but without flair or strong control. Diction and syntax are
usually appropriate, but lack variety. The reader has a clear sense of the
writer’s purpose, but is not engaged by the prose.
A
"C" paper is barely adequate. The paper features underdeveloped
paragraphs. Transition may be weak or absent. Although the reader may be aware
of some purpose, errors impede the fluency of the paper.
An
unacceptable paper or a "U" paper is compromised by its brevity and
it deficiency of composition, content, diction, syntax, structure, voice and
conventions of language as to render its meaning/purpose almost unintelligible.
STANDARDS
The
following
Social Studies, Standard 5:1, 5:3, 5:4
English
Language Arts, Standard 1
CONCLUSION
I
DON’T KNOW IF THE WORLD IS SAVABLE - I DON’T THINK ANYBODY KNOWS. BUT IF IT IS
TO BE SAVED, AND IF LIFE ON MOTHER EARTH IS TO BE WORTH LIVING, MANY OF YOU
WILL HAVE TO BECOME MAJOR HEALING FORCES. HOPEFULLY A GOOD NUMBER OF YOU WILL
DO SO BY HELPING TO TURN AROUND PUBLIC EDUCATION!