Jeremy B. Landa
Each lesson plan is a suggestion for the sequencing of learning that I anticipate in my class, which are 80 minute block periods that meet five times every two weeks. The sequencing follows a similar nature to that designed for learning by the Facing History and Ourselves organization, which focuses students through a process that begins with themselves and their identities, focuses on how societal forces contribute to misunderstandings between individuals and groups, studies the history itself, judges that history, and finally chooses to participate in that history.
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Throughout the process, I've found that engaging students with this type of pedagogical technique has two firm benefits: 1) students engage from a foundation of their own lives and understanding of the world 2) students use this entry point into their lives to engage with why history – whether from an economic, legal, political, or social standpoint – matters in their own lives.
More importantly, this allows a process where students are engaged to think about and then design responses to problems. This moves students from simply learning history to understand that it happened in the past towards a process where they learn history to become informed and understand how they may potentially impact the future of that history.
The other primary pedagogical strategy that I will use comes from Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana who have developed a protocol called the Question Formulation Technique™. This technique allows the teacher to develop focuses, but positions students to do all the questioning. The intent here is that students are the ones who inquire and seek the knowledge. For this reason, even though I have designed lessons that are comprehensive and involve specific questions, once we have moved past the first day, students will help derive many of the questions that drive our inquiry. Any time you see me mention questions, I will be using this book as a framework for working with students.
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Lesson Plan Day 1 – Introduction to the Question of Equity in Schools
Question of the Day: Can someone be privileged in some aspects of their life and not in others?
Practice (Most circles known as homework): Design a question within the class that you can write a reflective writing response of one page. The question should be an open-ended, inquiry question that will help lead us through the class. It should deal with the nexus of education, privilege, and microeconomics.
Teaching Strategies: Reading and Questioning Together, Class discussion, Pair-Share
This class is meant to complicate the ideas around privilege, socioeconomics, and race. It will begin with an introduction to kids considering privilege using two different sources. One is the book The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide by Meizhu Lui, et al. to establish a better understanding of how wealth disparity impacts day-to-day life. Using this book, students will read a short passage that will help them define the difference between wealth and income. It will also discuss some historical context that has shaped different individual experiences interacting with wealth.
Before reading this passage, students will address the following questions – "When does privilege or race happen in your life?, What positives occur as a result of race or privilege that happen in your life?, and What negatives occur as a result of race or privilege that happen in your life?" These questions are meant to prime students to talk about rather explosive topics in a way that acknowledges their experiences. As a class, we will create a collective identity map that acknowledges our racial experiences and the privileges we have. One acknowledgement here is that we all have racial experiences – some are more hostile and negative than others. This is a primer for students to begin unpacking the concepts of economic, racial, and social privilege in the context of schools.
Following this part of class students will read pages 8 – 13 from The Color of Wealth
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and participate in an activity that involves statements regarding privilege, class, and race.
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The point of this is get students ready to ask questions about this topic. The final part of this lesson will help students continue expanding the privilege bubble to their own schooling. We will conclude the lesson with writing open-ended, inquiry questions that are built around race, privilege, and their own identity. Students will select a question that they like from the group share-out of questions and write a response that will help relay their initial understanding of the concepts.
One area that I would also suggest, depending on the reading skill of the class would be the recent privilege article written by a freshman at Princeton University that discusses the concept of the phrase, "check your privilege". It is a great example of the challenges of teaching students who come from the standpoint of "I've earned everything I have received in my life".
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Day 2 – Idealizing Schools
Question of the Day: What are the ideal school demographics when it comes to race and socioeconomic status? Do these ideals match with what we actually observe within schools?
Practice: Using a class created survey, ask 5 people to tell you their ideal racial and socioeconomic diversity within a school
Teaching Strategies: Tactile Activity, Defining Key Words, Small and Large Group Discussion, Compare and Contrast Together
This lesson will involve students beginning to consider the idea of segregation, hyper-segregation, socioeconomic status, poverty, and the issues of equality and equity. We will begin by writing words that come to mind when students hear the words segregation, poverty, and equality. After they have independently brainstormed ideas, we will share out words or phrases, which will be used for students to define segregation, poverty, and equality by defining what a school that is equal does regarding segregation and poverty. These definitions will be used at the end of the unit for students to clarify to policy-makers what they believe these issues to be.
Following this, we will conduct a tactile experiment. I've attached a chart to graph this experiment. In this experiment, students will be identifying the ideal racial and socioeconomic demographics that schools should have according to their own beliefs. They will each, individually, select 10 figures from a basin that contains army figurines in secret. There are four different colors available, which will be representative of White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian. Some students may and should question if these are the right groupings, a immediate conversation into the issues with segregation, poverty, and how to make places equal. They will record their numbers and then as a class we will share the numbers and record them. Using the spreadsheet, I will calculate the averages based on the class. We will have the ability to sort respondents to the activity by race to try to discern if they are different from their peers who are different races.
Once we have completed this, we will repeat for the socioeconomic demographics. Once this is all done, the students will meet with a small group and discuss the results of this experiment. They will be required to write 3 – 5 new questions that have emerged from this experiment. The resolution of this class period will involve students writing an exit ticket that discusses the positives and negatives of trying to enact a plan where all schools have demographics similar to our class ideal.
The practice for this lesson involves kids speaking with up to five people they know and finding out what their ideals are regarding racial and socioeconomic demographics of schools. They will record information for our data set to gain more people and for us to work to determine if there are differences in the ideals of people of different races and ages.
Day 3 – Inputs and Outputs/Four Factors of Production of Schools – School Inventory
Question of the Day: How does our school use inputs to improve the quality of its output?
Practice: Determine who has close friends in different schools. Conduct an inventory of the other 9 schools beyond our own
Teaching strategies: Using school based practice to help students conduct research about the resources that other schools have, re-visit definitions of school equality and ask questions about resource equality in schools (land, labor, capital), Defining Words together
This lesson will be about reviewing vocabulary that is economics specific and then conducting research by going on a scavenger hunt around the school. The vocabulary review will involve reviewing class-wide definitions of equality and reviewing the four factors of production and the difference between inputs and outputs.
On a macro-level, this lesson is meant to preview the Supreme Court case, Milliken, which we will review the case following this.
Day 4 – Historical Contextualization of Schools: Milliken v Bradley & Sheff v O'Neill
Question of the Day: How has the judicial branch affected what we see in schools, both racially, economically, and regarding their funding?
Practice: Write your own question and reflect on the legal history and how you believe it has affected your life as a public magnet school student.
Teaching Strategies: Mini-Lecture – Sheff v. O'Neill, Practice together making inferences from tables regarding segregation racially and socioeconomically in schools, Questioning, Chunking Supreme Court case – Milliken v. Bradley
This class is the most important for helping students understand how decisions made within the federal judicial courts in 1974 eliminated busing as a policy for integrating schools and left cities with few options besides increased funding to improve schools. We will also look to Connecticut for one option that originated from this funding option that offered magnet schools of choice to try to change how segregated schools are in the state. The main purpose of this class is to ask questions about the legal cases and how the decisions may have impacted us today.
In that vein, the class will start with us reviewing the current state of American segregation federally and on the state level in Connecticut. The references will be the USA Today article written by Jolie Lee, which has outstanding infographics on school hyper-segregation since the 1950's as well as the 20 most segregated states for blacks in 2011- 2013.
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Likewise, we will use infographics from a Connecticutt Voices For Children report released, which will allow students to examine state definitions of hyper and moderately segregated schools as well as integrated schools.
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Within this report is the breakdown of individual school demographics on minorities and students who are free and reduced lunch. This will lead us towards a discussion about the ideal school again and compare it to what politicians have defined as ideal through Sheff v O'Neill, as noted in the report mentioned. Interestingly, the state to improve equality of opportunity, has defined an integrated school of choice as 25 – 75% minority as well as 25 – 75% free and reduced lunch (the federal measure of poverty in public schools). As a result, the class will further in Connecticut. We will record important questions students about the work of politicians and segregation practically defined.
At this point, we will read pieces of Bradley v. Milliken in order to gain some historical legal context for why solving the problem of segregated schools has been difficult. We will break into 3 groups in order to establish an understanding of the components of the case. One group will focus on the opinion of the Court delivered by Chief Justice Warren Burger, one group will focus on Justice Potter Stewart's concurring opinion, and one group will focus on Justice Thurgood Marshall's dissenting opinion.
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The purpose behind this activity, besides allowing the students to work together to understand the complexity of reading difficult case law decisions, is to question the legacy this decision left on people of different races and socioeconomic statuses in cities and suburbs. In particular, I will ask students to connect their question to their own personal experience as magnet students that are mostly bused to their school of choice. This legal history is vital for students to begin questioning why schools demographics are the way they are today.
Day 5 – School Funding Revenues
Question of the Day – How do schools in cities get their money? What questions does this process provoke?
Practice: Review the funding formula for New Haven's revenues. Identify where different revenues are coming from. Write 3 – 5 questions that remain unanswered.
Teaching Strategies: Mini-lecture – Educational Cost Sharing Fund in Connecticut, Model-Together-Independent Practice of calculating revenues, Questioning of Revenues, Guest Speaker
This class will begin with an experiment that helps students understand how funding happens at the local and state level. In order to do this, we will begin with students understanding the average breakdown of funding between federal, state, and local governments. Since most local funding comes from property taxes, we will run a simplified example of how property taxes in property rich and poor areas impact schools. We will assume that we are looking at New Haven and Greenwich. New Haven will have a property wealth of $50,000 per student while Greenwich will have a property value of $100,000 per student. We will calculate taxes collected in each place with a 5% tax and notice that New Haven receives $2,500 per student and Greenwich $5,000 per student. We will then imagine that Greenwich lowers its rate due to political pressure to 3%. Students will see that despite the lower rate, Greenwich still collects $3,000 to New Haven's $2,500.
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All of this will set the stage to then look at the state equity solution to unequal funding called the Connecticut Educational Cost Sharing Fund.
Since the problem presented has New Haven receiving less funding, the state of Connecticut will then become the actor to help equalize spending between the districts. They will have established a foundation that equalizes spending at $3,000. In the case we examined, Greenwich would not need any money from the state while New Haven would receive $500 per student. Students will then be exposed to the actual Foundation number in Connecticut, which has been $9,687 since 2007. It includes a formula to account for students in poverty and those that are limited English proficiency to fill the gap between local expenditure and state aided expenditure that attempts to equalize spending. Despite the foundation number being at $9,687, the average spending per pupil in 2008 was $12,518.
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This is problematic as what government set as a price ceiling, a number to not have to be exceeded by any district, has been exceeded by nearly every district in the state. The equity fund has not had much of an impact in improving equality in funding around the state because the state is not filling huge gaps; localities still rely on their property taxes more than is ideal. We will conclude with this interesting statement meant to generate questions about funding: the state of Connecticut should use its ECS fund to set a minimum price below what most localities spend on education.
After questions have been generated, we will have a guest speaker who is versed in educational financing. Some possible places to draw upon this speaker is an administrator like the Chief Financial Officer of New Haven Public Schools, a policy expert from Connecticut Voices For Children, or a Doctorate student from Yale or UConn who is focused on educational finance. This speaker should fill in gaps and be able to answer questions that students generated regarding funding between state and localities.
Day 6 – School Funding Costs
Question of the Day: How do schools in New Haven distribute the money they receive in the high schools? What questions does this process provoke?
Practice: Review the concepts of revenues and costs from economics. Complete calculations for discussion in the following class.
Teaching Strategies: Model-Together-Independent Practice of Economic Concepts, graphing for economics, Economics Application
This class is for students to be introduced to the public budgets that are posted for all the New Haven public schools.
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These budgets are representative of schools that are representative of a diverse student population at traditional, magnet, vocational, and alternative schools that encompass New Haven's high schools. The students will be remain with the groups they did the school inventory in the third lesson. The purpose of looking at the budget is to understand the purpose of schools from a governance and business standpoint. In this case, schools are self-sustaining because they have an expectation of money spent being equal to money brought in (tax revenue).
As the students review the costs, they will do two things. One is write a list of questions that they come up with regarding funding of New Haven schools. The second is that students will graph the information they have about schools for economics. They will determine the Average Total Cost, Average Fixed Cost, Average Variable Cost, Marginal Cost, and Marginal Revenue of a school and use this information. From this, they can determine what type of market structure – from a perfectly competitive market to a monopoly market. This will help them better understand how complex it is to run a school as a business.
Likewise, it will allow students to write a list of questions that they would ask policy-makers regarding funding schools. These questions will be used in the final project as they create a policy brief meant to help inform and debate the issues within school finance.
Day 7 – Fair? Equitable? Equal? All of the above? None? What relationship exists between the law, race, socioeconomics, and schools?
Question of the Day: What are the goals of schools in the context of government? How do revenues and costs, both total and on the margin help us understand how privilege plays out in schools each day?
Practice: Review and prioritize top 3 questions from the unit and list them to help complete final project
Teaching Strategies: School lottery activity Re-visit definitions of privilege using the school inventories we did, discussion of purpose of school, distribution of funds, and development of more questions
This class will examine the purpose of schools to contextualize the chaos and difficulty that exists for our country to create equitable and equal opportunities for students who attend schools. The beginning of this class will involve an activity where students become parents that are part of the New Haven Public School magnet lottery. This will allow us to address schools of choice as well as have students understand this process as parents would. This process should help students see the impact of laws that allow these types of schools to help solve problems.
This will introduce the tension that exists with individuals wanting fairness in society and using their own privilege, when they have it, to protect their own interests – in this case, their own child's human capital. This tension cuts to the core of privilege and might begin explaining how our country can be founded on equality and still not be equal. We will use this opportunity to re-visit definitions on privilege, race, and the purpose of schools.
The second part of this class will involve students sharing the information they discovered about their individual schools and questions they came up with regarding financing. At this point, they will have examined a number of frameworks – legal, economic, social, and political. They will have opinion regarding the purpose of schools, the funding of schools, and questions about how schools are run. We will share opinions, questions, and ideas that students have to prime them for the final project for the class.
Day 8 – 12 – Developing Modern Eco-Political Solutions to School Racial and Socioeconomic Segregation & Intra-district Inequity
Question of the Day: How can school budgets be re-allocated and what recommendations would you make to policy-makers?
Practice: Work through stages of the assignment. 1) Create a visual display (table, chart, graph) that explains and helps someone understand segregation and inequity in New Haven Schools from an economic standpoint 2) Write a 1 – 2 page policy brief for the Board of Education of New Haven directed to the President of the Board, the Superintendent of Schools, and the Mayor of New Haven
Teaching Strategies: Class Independent Work with Guided Conferences with Teacher
These classes are meant for students to synthesize the information they have learned and turn it into a policy recommendation with supporting documentation for policy-makers. The assignment will ask students to complete two important tasks. One is to use the quantitative information to develop a chart, graph, or table to help others understand their learning. This will be the first part of the assignment. It will be peer reviewed and reviewed by me to ensure quality and ensure proper feedback. The class will use a rubric that looks like the following:
Following students adequately completing their visual data interpretation, they will then write a policy brief that is addressed to any policy-maker that would be relevant to education. The minimum length of the policy brief will be 500 words and will require students to reference the revenues and costs of running schools. They will be expected to communicate this as economic policy experts, so the language should reflect a clear understanding of the economics of running a business. The purpose is to communicate the current policies in New Haven schools regarding economics and help define the policies that should continue and the policies that would improve if they were reformed. This is where they will demonstrate understanding privilege, racial and economic segregation, and the law within schools. The ideal demonstration would occur with presentations, preferably with at least a principal in the room. I am planning on inviting administrators from Central Office and from other political bodies of New Haven to hear the student's recommendations for school reform.