Methods
Context/Setting
My research took place in my home/office space where I analyzed data and literature related to the policy implementation at a public high school in a large urban district in New York State. I reviewed data sets on educational policy plans at state, district, and schools levels related to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) policy guidelines outlined at the federal level. In my study, I also reviewed data from BKHS including professional development opportunities, class scheduling, staff/department organization, afterschool and out of classroom arts opportunities provided at BKHS.
Procedures
Data was collected from the following public websites hosted by the New York State Education Department (NYSED), New York City Department Of Education (NYCDOE) and the federal government websites. Documents collected include:
ESSA guidelines/NYS ESSA Documents outlining the goals of the ESSA and how accountability is measured.
NYS ESSA plans for how these policies are then adapted to the state level and the expectations on how accountability is measured at the state level.
Arts in Schools Reports (2019-2020) from the NYCDOE detailing specific data related to arts in NYC public schools - such the number of programs in schools, numbers on content specialists in these schools, areas of achievement, areas of improvements and next step plans for the continuation and policies related to arts education in NYC public schools.
Comprehensive Educational Plan - for district and school levels - detailing how the ESSA and NYS ESSA were adapted at the district level and school level and how accountability is measured and the guidelines for schools in the district as well as how schools plan to implement these policies in their buildings.
Visual Arts Data from NYSED showing what data is collected related to arts education (but also what data is potentially missing from these data sets). Data from this set also included specific data related to BKHS demographics compared to local, district and NYS demographics. BKHS art programming related supports such as Professional Development opportunities, class scheduling, after school and out of classroom arts opportunities were gathered from researcher’s experience as the Visual Arts Teacher at this school.