Write a policy brief addressing the paper scenario provided below. The most important criterion
in evaluating your answer is your ability to demonstrate insights and critical analysis using the paper format provided below. In providing your analysis, you need to be concise, clear,
and to the point, using a coherent argument rather than an open-ended reciting of distinct ideas
from literature. Your points need to be presented in a logical flow that allows the reader to
easily follow the argument. The emphasis should be on the quality of your analytical insights,
reasoning, and how skillfully and critically you support your analytical argument. Please avoid reviewing and summarizing literature but rather use it to support your
coherent argument. The literature should be used to supplement your argument as citations or to
inform your discussion. Be careful to address all parts of the problem. Use APA citations throughout paper.
Paper Format
1. Executive Summary: Summary of the problem, its importance, and the main findings from your analysis (Note: you write this last)
2. Introduction/ Problem Statement: • Definition of a policy problem or issue. • Justification for the need of the proposed analysis.
3. Background of policy problem: • Description of the policy problem situation and its seriousness/symptoms. • Indicate the conditions, contextual factors and background that gave rise to the problem.
4. Policy Analysis
5. Analytical Framework (Note that this is the MOST IMPORTANT part of the paper): • Using theory and empirical research identify the analytical framework you would use to answer the posed research question (i.e.; assess whether the policy met its objective). This can be in the form of a model in which you articulate the functional form or analytical process. For example: identify inputs, outputs, and control variables; as well as complications and special considerations. Be sure to indicate why you have made these choices. • Indicate any limitations in the methods and analytical approaches of prior research such as the difficulty of measurement and how you would deal with them in your own proposed work. Indicate issues and concerns of the many facets of validity in methods (internal, external, and bias issues). • Identify criteria measures/indicators to be used in the analysis including all contextual factors that may impact the policy in its adoption format, implementation, and evaluation. • Be sure to indicate why you have made these choices.
6. Provide Analytical Approach and Research Design: • Select the methodology that is appropriate given your analytical model to answer the research question and indicate why. • Indicate how you’d measure your analytical variables. That is, what and how the data will be collected indicating any potential limitations.
7. Projected Effects and Analysis: • Using your framework and informed by research by others; indicate how would you assess the potential impact and outcomes of the policy given your stated hypothesis above. • Indicate to what extent your findings would be limited in answering whether the policy was effective in meeting its goals.
8. Recommendations
9. Implications/Conclusion • Summary of potential findings and possible recommendations for policy changes and further research. • Indicate the implications of the potential findings for policy development, evaluation and/or decision making.
10. References (in APA Style) • Appendices (if any): Tables, graphs, other not suitable for the body of the paper.
Paper Scenario (Topic of Paper)
In the fall of 2014, two 14-years old students enrolled as 9th graders in the only high school in a small county in State-Z (any state). Each had attended a different middle school located in a different part of the county (two different districts) with varying demographics, resource base, and administrative organization. One of the students is a black Hispanic female, while the other is a white male. Both had fairly identical achievement record in all the core content subjects, as measured in both their GPA and their state administered test scores. The parents of the female student complained to the high school principal about the decision of the high school’s math department not allowing their daughter to enroll in the Advanced Placement math track due to “the lack of Computer Aided Math instruction in the middle school she attended, which is a necessary requirement for placement in the advanced math track”. Is the decision by the high school math department discriminatory? Does it create grounds for “inequity” of educational opportunity? On what premise(s) or base(s)? Discuss analytically alluding to the root cause(s) of the problem. Then using your analysis of the problem, propose a solution
Please feel free to let me know if you need reference recommendations. Thank you in advance!
