RJA 2a: Research Topic

RJA 2a: Research Topic

 

1)     I have chosen the topic: How Public Schools and Charter Schools prepare children for long term success. I have chosen this topic for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that I am studying to get my teaching license in Secondary Math. I am curious how the different curriculums and environments prepare children for long term academic success. I would like to be better informed about this topic before completing my degree. I believe the more informed I am about how children learn, the better teacher I can be. Another reason is that I have four little girls who have been in the Charter School environment and the Public School environment. Both the Public School system and the Charter School system are completely biased about their curriculums. I would like to have more knowledge and facts without relying on a biased opinion.  

2)     I don’t know a whole lot about this area. I do know that the classic education model is the one used in most Charter Schools. This model prepares children through repetition. I think this means, for example that the children will learn Shakespeare in second grade and then again in sixth grade but in a more in depth study. I think the philosophy is that you give them all of the knowledge and information up front so when they study it in depth later , they are better equipped and prepared. Again I am not positive about this. Some questions I hope to answer in this essay would be: How are children prepared for college when exposed to the classical education model  and the public school model? How much does the school district and community play into a child’s success? Is this more prevalent to a child’s success than the actual curriculum? Does introducing children to the classics early, give them a head start and better prepare them for college? How do the children’s test scores differ in Public and Charter? How are they similar?

3)     I don’t know a lot about this topic. First I need to find out more about the different teaching methods in both schools. This will probably need to be narrowed down by communities too; say inner suburban neighborhoods, and rural neighborhoods; Low income neighborhoods, and high income neighborhoods. I will need to find test results and learn how to read the test results for standardized testing. I will need to figure out if children have been tracked through their college years and how they perform while in college.  I will probably need to look at individual academic subjects; maybe public school better prepare children for sciences while charter schools better prepare them for languages.