Instructions: Discuss how the policies of the Bush Era have influenced the current state of public education. Provide specific examples from legislation, funding, or educational reforms.

1. Choose an education policy and community: Identify a Bush Era education policy to investigate. The policy could relate to equity, acess, standardized testing, the achievement gap, teacher accountability, etc. Then identify a community context of interest to you in which to analyze the policy's impact.
2. Investigate the policy. How did the policy work in practice? How did it impact various stakeholders? Maintain a log of sources that includes key takeaways from each and how it impacted your thinking.
3. Interview someone impacted by the policy (educator, student, parent, etc.). Develop 5-10 questions to collect their experiences. How did their experience line up with the intentions of the policy? How does what they said extend or challenge what you found in your sources?
4. Develop an alternative or modification to the policy. Based on your findings, propose a modification or different policy. What led you to this policy? What does it take into consideration that the other didn't? How do you imagine various stakeholders be impacted?

• Meaningful context: It invites students to analyze the policy within a community they care about, adding an emotional motivator.
• Adds an experiential component & original data: Students must speak to a person who was impacted by the policies in order to contextualize the issues.
• Process-based and metacognitive components: Captures students source selection and how it impacted their thinking.