Public Policy: A government action that determines what course of action will be taken to deal with a specific social issue or social problem. A Public Policy Analyst analyses a social problem and scrutinizes policies that are working to solve it.

TIPS: Teaching Interdisciplinary problem solving.

TIPS is “our vision for transforming teaching and learning.”

Webquest: A search on the Internet that will help us to explore a question.

Why do our Public Schools need changing?

Walton High School Bronx, New York - spring 2004

Ada Ortiz-Manzano: Ada_Millions@hotmail.com

AdaFromtheBronx@aol.com

Introduction:

How is public education failing us? Everyone is asking questions about this. Everyone seems to have an opinion as to why our public schools, especially in the inner cities or urban areas, need to be revamped. Public Education is on the minds of everyone, starting with the President of the United States and down the line to our representatives in Congress; our businessmen, our lawyers, our governors and our mayors and the teachers and the parents and the students and so on and so forth. Well, why are they considered a social problem? What kinds of ideas and solutions are being posed or implemented as educational policy so that the public school problem can be addressed and remedied?

Closely examine a question you may have about an educational social problem and see what you

think . You will base your conclusion or answer on an informed analysis.

Task: You will embark upon a quest, a webquest, which will allow you to decide what the answer to your question is.

Because of this webquest, you should be able to: have developed a thorough understanding of the Public Policies that influence and shape the lives of students in this country and specifically the inner city or urban school. Since you are a High School student in New York City, you may want to focus your search on a question you have about schools in New York City. You may focus on issues or social problems facing your particular school.

· You may want to compare schools from among all the New York City high schools , or just the high schools in your borough {The Bronx} or your district {District 1}

· You may want to focus upon your own school {Walton High School}

Internet Resources:

Type in a “word” or “phrase”, surrounded by quotation marks and see what sites comes up for your topic. You will be amazed at the number of sites you will find.

The following search engines may assist you in your research.

· Google
https://www.google.com

· AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com

· Excite
http://www.excite.com

· www.askjeeves.com

Schools and Education

· New York State Education Department

· New York City Schools

· United States Department of Education

· The education of Latino Students

· The No Child Left Behind Act {NCLB}- AFT

· Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

· Economic Policy Institute :

· Partisan Think Tanks: Center For American Progress

· Heritage Foundation

· Public Education Network/Education Week Survey-

Format: The framework you will use to develop your analysis, opinion, or conclusion will be based upon that of a Public Policy Analyst.

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/tips.html

Public Policy Analyst Website: The Process

Here you will use the websites listed below to help you answer the questions on the Public Policy worksheets.

1. Define the problem:

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/select.html

2. Gather evidence:

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/gather.html

3. Identify causes:

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/identify.html

4. Evaluate a policy:

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/existing.html

5. Develop solution:

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/solutions.html

6. Select best solution:

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/bestsol.html

This web quest focuses on the following New York State Standards:

Languages Other Than English

Standard 2:   Cultures: Gain knowledge and Understanding of other Cultures

Students will develop cross-cultural skills and understandings. Namely, students will be able to understand what’s

happening in the schools.

Standard 3: Connections: Connect with other disciplines and Acquire Information.

They will recognize and apply the different and distinctive viewpoints and presentation techniques, when

doing research for defining, gathering evidence, identifying the causes, evaluating, and developing solutions

when problem solving.

This web quest also focuses on the following English Language Arts Standards:

Standard 1: Language for Information and Understanding

Standard 3: Language for Critical Analysis and Evaluation

Standard 4: Language for Social Interaction

E1c: Reads and comprehends information materials

E4b: Analyze and subsequently revise work to improve its clarity and effectiveness.

Your project should contain and will be evaluated and based on the following:

1. What is the social problem?

2. What ideas and solutions are currently in place?

3. How effective are they?

4. What are the proposed policies?

5. What is your informed analysis and opinion?

6. Is that your final answer?

Rubric	3	2	1
Content:	Excellent: very good information	Competent: Good Information	Fair: Information is not clear
Organization:	Very clear: easy to understand	Clear: Understandable	Poor: Confusing
Visual:	Excellent	Good	Needs improvement

Conclusion:

Way to go! You had a task to accomplish a webquest and you have succeeded.

· You should have learned how to search the Web sites to find exactly what you were looking for.

· You should have learned how to use these websites to locate and compare results.

· In addition, you have learned how to navigate sites to pick out important information and have translated this information into a Graph or a PowerPoint presentation.

· Finally, you should have learned how to compare at least two different possibilities, along with their disadvantages and advantages [feasibility and effectiveness]

· You should have learned how to come to a possible decision [public policy] or an opinion based on what you

have found during your research.