proposal -New York City Teaching Fellows
Pick an education reform effort. (New York City Teaching Fellows) It can be the work of a school, school district or system, non-profit organization, university, company, institute, local, state, or national government. Note: the wider the organizations reach, the more complex and difficult to analyze, but also, the more data there is available. I recommend picking a project that is working at the community, city, district, or school level, or focusing in on just one aspect of a larger organization’s work. If the effort is at a small scale (for example, a small charter school network), feel free to use that effort as a case study for efforts with similar strategies/approaches (ie; charter schools in general). Some suggestions appear at the end of this document. Think about efforts you have heard about on the education blog or news site you have been following in your journal entries.
Use the following to outline your proposal, Make sure you hit on each point below:
1. The problem the reform effort attempts to solve as defined by the organization (is it student achievement in mathematics? Teacher quality? Lack of technology in schools? Is the problem rooted in a certain region? Be specific).
2. Sources beyond the organization that you will consult to define the problem, such as databanks providing demographic info, statistics on education from the city, state, and federal and school evaluations from educational agencies or non-profits. There may be some helpful links in the Education folder of the Websites section of Blackboard. Provide ASA formatted citations for the sources you plan to consult.
3. Describe how the education reform effort is attempting to solve the problem.
4. What theories and research from the course readings thus far could you use to supportthe solution that your organization is working towards? Provide ASA formatted citations and a few sentences explaining how the theories and research would support the proposed course of action of your organization.
5. What theories and research from course readings thus far could be used to complicate or contest the approach offered by this organization? Provide ASA formatted citations and a few sentences explaining how the theories and research complicate or contest the course of action of the organization.
6. A bibliography in ASA format of sources that you research which have analyzed this reform effort or efforts like it (complete outside research). Summarize the findings of each of the studies that you believe will be the most relevant to your paper. To get highly developed, you will need 5 or more sources.
7. Your first impressions of how the effort seems to be succeeding, the challenges it faces, flaws in its design, in your own words. To what extent have the organization’s reforms been effective? To what extent has it fallen short? For “highly-developed,” come up with a preliminary thesis statement for your paper.
