Exit Interview

Content:

(1) What is your essential question and answers?  What is your best answer and why?

 

My essential question is "How can a nonprofit best promote high school education to socioeconomically disadvantaged teenagers in Los Angeles?" My first answer is "To push for a reform in education that emphasizes workforce training. My second answer is "To support teachers with effective technology integration within educational environments." My third answer is "To ensure students are granted equal educational opportunity." My best answer by far is my third answer, because educational opportunity is extremely dependent upon socioeconomic status. Improving the educational opportunities for those who do not necessarily have high economic status will repair the wide gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unless this gap is repaired, technological implementation or effective workforce training will not be effective.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

 

Lots and lots and lots of research.  I had to think a lot about the underlying problems of education, being that it's so integrated with everything else. I considered technology and its enormous on society, and I thought maybe it could be used effectively. I considered utilizing an education based on the workforce, and that wasn't quite right. In the end, I had to acknowledge all the factors of society and education, and I soon considered that the socioeconomic gap in our society - the widening gap between the rich and the poor - was to blame. All of this was backed by outside research.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

 

 The biggest problem I had faced in answering my essential question was the integration of all aspects. Education is a very big field, and has a lot to correspond with the health of the economy, the integrity of the workforce, and societal well-being. This made it very challenging to form good answers because I had to acknowledge all aspects of the problem.

 

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

 

Both of these articles are by very prestigious institutions, contain great citations, and provide very good insight into my third answer.

Duncan, Arne. "A Blueprint for Reform." United States Department of Education, 2008. Web. March 2010. http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/blueprint/blueprint.pdf

 Brown, Cynthia. "Ensuring Equal Opportunity in Public Education." Center For American Progress, 2008. Web. June 2008. http://www.broadeducation.org/asset/1128-ensuring%20equal%20opportunity.pdf#page=1&zoom=auto,0,800