Mentorship

Content:

    Literal

My mentor is Donald Bower, at Edward Jones' Financial Advisory.

    Interpretive

     What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

 The most important thing I have gained from this experience is how the financial world operates. This both helps me towards Senior Project in answering my essential question, and for furthering my future endeavors in the subject of Finance - I plan to achieve a Finance minor.

   Applied

     How has what you’ve done helped you to answer your EQ?  Please explain.

I learned a lot about school funding and expenditures, which is a very large part of my topic, especially pertaining to my third answer relating to socioeconomic inequality. My mentor had assigned me a research project where I was a theoretical school, and I had to allocate my funding wisely. Doing this was a large part of truly grasping my third answer of "To ensure students are granted equal educational opportunity" because it gave me the research backing needed to truly comprehend the facts that make my answer possible.

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

Independent Component 2

"Education is the most powerful tool you can use to change the world." 

- Nelson Mandela.

LITERAL
(a) “I, Adrian Gallegos, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.”
(b) My source that I have used the most that can be referenced is the following: Means Barbara. "Technology and Education Change: Focus on Student Learning." SRI International, 2010. Web. 2010. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ882507.pdf
(c) I have completed the log.
(d) I have completed a mock grant iniative, in which I have chosen International Polytechnic High School as a hypothetical school, and I have established a grant in which a specific amount of money goes to specific causes. I have chosen to use the hypothetical grant for a more rigorous math and science program, and I defend my reasoning.  
INTERPRETIVE 
The mock grant proposal definitely took 30 hours of work to research, write, and assemble in its entirety. It is similar to a large research paper, and required lots of research, editing, writing potential educational plans, looking at other schools as models, and finally assembling all of my materials.
APPLIED
This component helped me answer my essential question because writing a grant proposal is one of the primary aspects of a nonprofit, and understanding what a nonprofit organization has the power to do is an integral aspect to my Senior Project.

My full independent component can be found at this link.

*I suggest downloading it to avoid formatting errors found in Google Drive. 

Post Spring Break!

Over the break, I have found something markedly interesting about my topic. As it turns out, education has an even larger correlation with socioeconomic status than I have previously thought.

According to Laura Post's article "Inequality in Teaching & Schooling", by Stanford University, there is almost a linear relationship between the median amount of income per household to the mean performance on standardized tests and G.P.A. In addition, high-income white students outperform all students of all other given ethnicities on all areas of achievement. The wealthiest schools on average, have individual student expenditures 4-6 times more than low income schools. One of the infographics can be found below.

Before this read, I was under the impression that income and social inequality were social constructs that were behind us in the past, but I now understand that they still pose extremely large threats within our society, and will continue to hinder our progress if we don't do something. This might also make for an interesting turn in my senior project. Hmmm...

Third Answer

Content:

EQ: How can a nonprofit best promote high school education to socioeconomically disadvantaged teenagers in Los Angeles?

Answer #3: To ensure students are granted equal educational opportunity.

Detail 1: In the United States, schools are funded by property taxes. In lower income areas with lower property taxes, schools are of lower quality.

Detail 2: The top 10% of U.S. schools only accept about 9% of their students from the bottom 2 income quintiles,

Detail 3: Family resources are one favor in educational inequity - 15% of white students, and 10% of asians are raised in single family homes, while 27% of latinos and 54% of african american students have only one parent.

Source: Holsinger, Donald B. "Inequality in Education: Comparative and International Perspectives." CERC, 2007. Web. 2008. http://sociologia.davidjustino.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/HOLSINGER2008_inequality_in_education.pdf

Conclusion: As many educational equality reforms have existed in the United States, educational inequality by socioeconomic class is still a very big problem.

Educational Variance - A hardship!

 "The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."

 - Aristotle.

The more I research into the United States' complex educational system, the more I question. The most outright current problem with it is that none of it is unified. Going over from California to Nevada may result in a change on any given test of up to 15 mean percentile points, according to the Economics of BA Ambivalence, by the University of Minnesota.

Each state - in terms of education - seems to function independently of its neighbors, with Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia having the lowest median standardized test scores, while Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Maryland have the highest median scores.

This variance proves to be a major problem in my research because when research papers often compare the United States to other countries, it allows for the extremely low scoring states to bring down the overall average and therefore adds a large error to the results. From now on, I must keep this in mind in order to accurately compare other country's results to the United States. On the other hand, I think this educational variance is what speaks for itself in terms of the United State's overall educational performance.

Fourth Interview Questions

Content:

Post 20 open-ended questions for approval you want to ask an expert in the field of your senior project.  The focus of your questions should be on your many answers.

1st answer: To push for a reform in education which emphasizes workforce training.

2nd answer:To support teachers with effective technology integration within educational environments.

3rd possible answer: Something having to do with international competition/future job markets.

4th possible answer: To clarify existing societal misconceptions. [needs immediate rewording]

1. In your experience, how does a solid education affect an individual to be a functioning member of society?

2. In your experience, how does an individual stemming from a lower income environment differ from an individual stemming from a higher income environment?

3. As the United States as a whole, how can we best ensure our students can compete against other nations?

4. As the United States as whole, how can we best ensure our students are prepared for the future job markets?

5. How may future students be best prepared outside of formal schooling?

6. In your experience, what separates successful teachers from unsuccessful ones?

7. Following those traits, how can these tactics be employed to create more successful teachers?

8. In your experience, how do students respond to "busy work"?

9. In your experience, how do students respond to work they find applicable to real life?

10. In your experience, how do students who learn in collaborative environments differ from individual learners?

11. In the future, what are some of the potential ways you can see technology shaping education?

12. What are some of the potential ways you can see technology shaping society?

13. In your opinion, how may technology be successfully implemented within classrooms?

14. In your opinion, how may technology be misused within classrooms?

15. How can we best teach our students while still giving them the abilities to function within an increasingly rapid-paced technological society?

16. What existing misconceptions do teachers have that affect students today?

17. What existing misconceptions does society have that affect students today?

18. What do you think society's general opinion about our youth is today?

19. If you could change any opinion of society today about your youth, what would it be and why?

20.  How can the United States best be changed to improve modern education and equity for all?