Ashleigh Chin's Blog

This weekend, I graduate from GWU’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development with a master’s degree in education policy. Over these past two years, I repeatedly have informed friends that I cannot meet on various weekends and evenings because I have pages to read and papers to write. I have worked on group projects where members have lived across DC, Maryland, and Virginia, held fulltime jobs, had families, and still managed to find time to talk about a presentation. I have tried to answer the question about whether the degree is worth it on many occasions.

I have realized that my answer is yes because I have had two years to learn from the members of my cohort and they have been the best part of my program.

 The Education Policy Studies program is small. Each member, however, brought different experiences that added to the discussions we had both in and out of class. We have teachers, both from charter and non-charter schools and from unionized and non-unionized districts. We have classmates who wrote about education, who worked in education advocacy organizations, and who worked in testing organizations.  We have people who had spent time in the DC area and others coming here for the program. We have members who enjoy talking and others who listened.

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April. It’s all that remains. Once May rolls around, I will have finished my readings, my papers and presentations, my classes, and I’m going to have things called ‘weekends’ back in my life.

 

Despite having already ordered my cap and gown, I am not done. The April pages of my planner glow with highlighted due dates and Saturdays and Sundays designated for the completion of specific assignments. Scheduling anything with other friends in graduate school becomes a conversation of how I am working on a paper that weekend and they are working on one the next. We’ve put our plans on hold until May. I find myself feeling happy that spring weather has not shown up yet because it makes me feel better when I spend so much time inside working.  

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My mid-semester blues most often appear in February, which made me perfectly understand Danielle Bierzynski’s recent blog post where she wrote about that state of mind that causes one to question the point of pursuing a degree and whether it is worth the energy even to think about finishing.

 

February is a cold, dark month and inevitably has the first major deadlines of the spring semester, which makes it the perfect time for mid-semester blues to strike. As I scramble to meet multiple deadlines, class time feels like a burden that takes away time I could use to work on projects or papers for other courses.

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In a week, I begin my final semester in graduate school. Barring any major disasters, at the end of May, I will walk across a stage and return to evenings and weekends free of class work. I will no longer spend hours each week trying to cram in endless chapters from books I can never find in the same place I last placed them. I will not have to navigate through Blackboard trying to remember if a reading is filed under Files or under Discussion or under some other undiscovered folder. At the end of semesters, my friends will not need to worry about whether I have disappeared under a mountain of notes for final papers. With the lure of this freedom dangling only a few months away, I find myself reflecting on whether it was worth it.

Two years spent in classes where more often than not classes ended with the realization of just how much work was left can make one wonder if those two years were well spent. Last semester, I felt like each week I left my Race, Law & Education class unsure if anything would ever change or improve. Issues addressed in Supreme Court cases from 50 years ago still resonate today, a pattern I noticed during my History of American Education Reform class as well. In both classes, we discussed solutions and ideas developed 20 years ago that still had not been fully implemented.

In other classes, we looked for possible solutions only to discover that they needed to be context specific. As we examined leaders in education in my Leadership and Education course, it became clear that the traits that worked in one environment might lead to failure in another setting. Discussions in Policy Issues in International Education for Developing Countries often led to the same conclusion. Ideas had to be carefully adapted for the developing country or emergency situation to have any chance of success.

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In the first days of her Education Policy course and her History of American Education Reform course, Professor Futrell repeatedly emphasized the immense size of the American education system. The number of schools, school districts, students, and teachers seemed impossibly large and incredibly complex. While I theoretically understood how these numbers created obstacles for education reform and the implementation of education policy, it is only through my internship at the Data Quality Campaign that I have fully begun to appreciate the importance she placed on those numbers. At times it seems as if what I learned in class is crashing in on what I'm working on, which, I suppose, is the point of taking these classes and working on this degree.

 During my internship, I have become increasingly aware of how much the complexity and size of the American education system presents challenges to reform. Stakeholders at all levels, from national and federal education organizations to state education agencies to local education agencies, want their voices heard and their policies implemented. During my internship, I have conducted research on education policy and legislation, which has given me a new perspective on why implementing new policy is challenging.

 Through my research on how different states evaluate teacher effectiveness, I have seen how each state, DC, and Puerto Rico each has a different policy with different requirements. Even when states have similar policies, how they expect districts and schools to implement them may vary. If anything has reiterated Professor Futrell’s lesson on the size of the American education system, it has been my research for my internship.

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Countdown: 2.5 semesters completed, 1.5 semesters of graduate school left

 

What I’m looking forward to: Evenings without class, weekends without reading or paper writing, that elusive thing called free time

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Time has flown this past year. I feel as if I’ve only just decided to attend GWU’s Education Policy Program and now, registration for fall classes of my last year begins today. Perhaps it’s the increased number of electives I’m able to take next semester or the knowledge that I’m half way through my program, but course selection for next year feels more difficult than it did for the past two semesters. It reminds me of that feeling during the spring of my junior year of college, when it dawned on me that I only had one more year to take all of the classes that interested me. Much like I did then, I find myself having to weigh the benefits of taking classes for pure interest and classes that will help me improve professionally and academically.   One of the reasons I decided to pursue this degree was to increase my skill set and further my understanding of education policy. Making choices that align to that goal is like having to go to the dentist. It’s good for you and you feel much better afterwards, but if you have to do something on a Saturday morning, it’s not your first choice.

Having the option to take a few elective courses next semester should ease this dilemma, but with so little time left in my program and only six more courses to take, I have to balance what I want and what I probably need. As I look through the course catalog, I keep asking myself what will help me most after I graduate next year. Thinking about that forces me to consider how I want to focus my degree.

Although studying Education Policy Studies means that I've already focused my self within public policy studies, further focus is still necessary. Do I want to focus on urban education or international education issues? Do I want to strengthen my ability to understand the statistics or the legislation of education? I must consider these questions as I try to select what I will take next semester. A year ago, as I decided to study at GWU, I might have been able to answer these questions easily. Still in the classroom teaching, I had a clear vision of what steps I wanted to take to improve education. A year later, removed from the classroom, now a student of Education Policy, I have reevaluated my ideas of what can be done and what will most benefit future generations of students. As I have learned over the past two semesters, there are many ways to approach a problem and develop a solution. There are many components to understanding the problems of education and there are more problems than one realizes while standing at the front of the classroom each day. This past year has flown by and I know the next one will as well. Graduation, while still far away, will come all too soon and it’s important that I remember my reasons for entering this program. Deepening my comprehension of these problems is why I decided to pursue Education Policy Studies, so ultimately the classes I select must reflect that.  I don’t always want to go to the dentist or take certain course, but afterwards, I’m going to feel great.

As a former teacher, I have mixed feelings about publishing teacher ratings. With the recent release of teacher data in New York City, I have spent some time thinking about why I cannot easily make up my mind on whether or not revealing this data is positive or negative. A recent discussion in my Qualitative Research Methods class did little to help me decide. The class debated how much responsibility the researchers versus the consumers held in terms of understanding data. Without getting into the debate, let me just say that it left me conflicted about the release of teacher ratings.

On the positive side, I believe that parents have a right to know how educators perform. These teachers, after all, are responsible for the education of their children. In college, I often spoke with other students to learn more about professors. Did the professors actually teach? Did students feel like they had learned something from the class and the professor? Parents should have this type of information to determine if their students will have an educator who actually teaches. Furthermore, if teachers know that parents and students will have an opportunity to see their performance ratings, then perhaps it will motivate them to perform better. This is the reasoning behind grading students.

On the negative side, I cannot support the release of data based on standardized test scores. These test scores do not accurately measure a teacher’s ability. They do not capture all that a teacher does in a classroom and they ignore the other influences on a student’s performance. A student’s performance on a single test will vary depending on something as simple as missing a bus. Test anxiety, something else outside of a single teacher’s control and increased by the pressures of high stakes testing, also influences a student’s performance. Having taught a tested subject area, I witnessed this every year. I watched a responsible, level-headed student become increasingly nervous as the test for my class drew nearer. I had a panicking student run into my classroom on the day of the test because the bus had passed her without stopping and now she was late.

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Classes start today!

One would think that at this point in my academic career, having gone through every step from kindergarten to high school to college to graduate school, the start of classes would cease to create any anticipation and anxiety. This is not the case.

I’m looking forward to seeing what this semester brings. I’m taking courses that I never considered before this year. Introduction to Educational Statistics worries me for no other reason that the word ‘statistics.’ The English major in me remains wary of any terms that sound vaguely mathematic or scientific, which means I’m not too confident about Qualitative Research Methods or Program Evaluation either. ‘Qualitative’ looks too much like quantitative in my mind, which brings forth the fear of math. This feeling is completely unfounded because they obviously mean very different things. The problem is that ‘research methods’ does not calm my nerves because it makes me think of sitting in a science lab. I can’t explain why, it just does. My last class, Program Evaluation, has the unfortunate luck of having the word ‘evaluation’ in the title, which reminds me of the math worksheets with endless problems and one-word directions: “Evaluate.’ Apparently my experiences with these worksheets now cause apprehension simply at any form of the word.

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With two papers and two classes remaining, my first semester at GW has nearly ended, which makes this a perfect time to start worrying about my summer plans. As the semester break approaches, I have started to develop a list of places to contact about summer internships and fellowships that will allow me to enhance my experience as an Education Policy student. After my mixed results when pursuing these during college, I fully appreciate the necessity of starting my search early.

(I will admit that some of my efforts may stem more from extreme efforts at procrastinating rather than any attempt at excellent planning, especially when my research becomes overwhelming and I become tired of my topic.)

The wonderful thing about my research is the help I have received from GWU. Between regular emails from the GSEHD Career Center, from the GW Career Center, and from my program, I have learned a lot about the opportunities available for graduate students. Although receiving a high level of emails becomes frustrating at times, knowing that I attend a school that constantly informs students about opportunities has helped ease my personal concerns about my ability to find a summer position. Both the GSEHD Career Center and the GW Career Center also offer advice through emails, workshops, and other events, which they encourage students to attend.

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Graduate school and college are different. During college everyone lives in the same place, with a similar mindset, and encounters nearly identical day-to-day experiences. In graduate school, especially an urban school like George Washington University (GWU), the social setting does not follow that pattern. In my program, people come from the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland. This can make networking, especially on a social level, difficult to coordinate and I can easily imagine spending little time with my peers beyond the classroom.

 

I, however, do not want my memory of graduate school to consist solely of laughable attempts to balance while reading on the Metro and random texts with classmates about the requirements of an assignment. I want to feel like I belong to the GWU community and that I know my classmates. This means I’ve been working to get involved with GWU and my classmates, not just to study but to get to know them personally.

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I decided that I would definitely return to graduate school in the spring. When I shared my decision with others, people tended to give me a confused and mildly concerned look. I can see the hidden question, "Is she crazy?" but of course they politely ask, “What do you plan to do with a Masters in Education Policy?”

 

Both are good questions. 

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