Analysis and Evaluation of Pennsylvania Senate Bill 664
Identify a specific policy related to education (current, past or proposed) and analyze the design of the policy. You are to write it as if you are presenting this briefing to a public official, such as a senator or governor, so your tone should be formal and concise. These sections of the rubric should guide your analysis and be used as sections of your paper
1. Policy description: Explain the legislation in common language—no direct quotes from the legislation. Explain in a way that an everyday person could understand. What at are the policy’s intended goals and effects? Bold the answers to the questions--What policy tools are used to achieve these goals? What is the target population of this policy? （I attached a doc that's a topic I chose and wrote about, you may skip policy description and stick with the policy I chose to write about the next parts)
2. Statement of the problem: What problem did the policy seek to address and how is the problem defined? Drawing on evidence external to the policy document to use statistics and description to explain the scope of the problem. Use statistics when possible or a compelling example. Bold your response to What is the policy Window-- Note the date of the policy. Why was the policy submitted at this time in history? In what contexts (state/federal, political, economic, social) is this legislation being presented (what’s happening beyond this
policy that might affect whether it could be passed in that present time). Does the policy have a chance?
3. Evaluation: Research the central issue of your policy with external, peer reviewed sources. Peer reviewed sources can be found through a Google Scholar Search (https://libraries(dot)psu(dot)edu/databases/psu01904 ) and/or a PSU Library search (https://libraries(dot)psu(dot)edu/ ) and have much less bias than something pulled from the
internet. Using evidence from this outside research, analyze the strengths and weaknesses in this policy proposal. Provide at least three strengths and three weaknesses for the policy with evidence. Each strength and weakness should have at least one paragraph of evidence.
4. Final recommendation: Provide at least three final recommendations, with elaboration for each. What concrete suggestions do you have to improve the policy?
The principal bibliographical sources you plan to use, including (if advisable) face-to-face, telephone, and/or e-mail interviews In APA style. Bibliography should include at least five sources, three of which must be of academic caliber (journal articles, research reports, etc.—NOT newspaper articles or unsupported evidence from a web site). For each citation, provide a few sentences explaining of what the source contains and why it will be helpful for your paper. Your policy text and the readings for the class do not count as your five sources.
Analysis and Evaluation of Pennsylvania Senate Bill 664
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Analysis and Evaluation of Pennsylvania Senate Bill 664
Statement of the Problem
The Problem to be Addressed
Pennsylvania Senate Bill 664 of 2021-2022 (SB 664) seeks to address the issue of loss of educational opportunities and learning that all students, especially students with special educational needs, experienced due to disruption in physical teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. The legislation defines the problem that due to the lockdown and closure of schools, school-going students of all grades and abilities lost routine educational opportunities, including extracurricular activities. Thus, parents are provided with an opportunity to make up for this loss by opting to enroll their students for the repetition of a grade in school.
Scope of the Policy
The analysis of relevant data and understanding of various statistics reveals the scope of this policy. According to the results of Pennsylvania's Standardized Test Scores for 2021, students' performance, especially in the domain of mathematics and English language, declined sharply during the pandemic. Based on the data provided by the state educational authorities, students' performance in the English language declined, with a proportion ranging between 3.5 to 7% compared to the result of the test conducted in 2019. Similarly, the proportion of the decline in students' performance in mathematics ranged between 7 to 11% (The Confluence, 2022). These performance indicators lead to the conclusion that the use of radical and revolutionary means to upgrade the learning standards of these students is mandatory to enable them to compete with other students in practical life. It is essential to understand that without using such a strategy, the students of the COVID-19 batch will be liable to below standard performance in higher education and practical life.
Moreover, this data specifically refers to the students from grades three to eight, and the most alarming aspect of this decline is the low participation of students in the tests. This factor aggravates the problem as due to the lack of proper participation of students, the proportion of decline could be more alarming than shown by the current data. Scholarly research has established the significance of higher grades in mathematics and language for building a strong academic foundation in students. Thus, the current statistics substantiate the validity and scope of this policy as by retaining students' for one additional year, educators may be able to make up for performance decline. This policy is particularly effective for students with special needs as their education is mainly based on physical participatory activities and exercises.
The Window of the Policy
The policy works with a narrow time window as it addresses the issues of loss of educational opportunities during 2020-2021. The SB 664 bill was presented in 2021; thus, its recommendations are implementable as it targets students with the most recent COVID-19 experience. Moreover, its recommendations apply to students of a wide range of educational institutions across the state, including the school district, technical and career-oriented education institutes, charter and cyber charter schools, and public and approved private schools (The Confluence, 2022). Moreover, this legislation applies to students with special abilities who turned 21 between the time period of 2020 and 2021. In the same way, this bill applies to other students who are under 18 or older.
Social and Economic Context of the Policy
Pennsylvania Senate Bill 664 of 2021-2022 (SB 664) was presented for approval in June 2021 and was passed by both the Pennsylvania House and Senate on June 24, 2021. The selection of this date for tabling this legislation demands special attention as this bill's historical and social context helps us understand its implications and significance. This bill was passed in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the reopening of the schools after an extended closure due to COVID-19-induced lockdown. This closure turned out to be the most devastating impact on young adults' education in Pennsylvania's history as its disrupted normal education in 3,000 public schools. In addition, it disturbed the learning curve of approximately 1.7 million students (Penn State Social Science Research Institute, 2020).
Additionally, the most worrying aspect of the school closure is that this closure or disruption of the normal educational process occurred in the mid of the "summer slide ."Summer slide is a term used for that part of the academic year in learning and education declines due to summer breaks. This dual impact on the learning curve of all students, especially students with special needs, was a social and educational dilemma that needed to be addressed to make up for the loss. Sensing the gravity of the situation and the need for a timely response, Pennsylvania state authorities have presented this legislation for approval right after the reopening of the schools. This timing is crucial for effectively implementing this policy as the students who were promoted to the next level after the pandemic desperately needed to revitalize their learning curve. Had this legislation not been presented and passed right after the COVID-19 pandemic, students. Specifically, students with special needs would only have opportunities to upgrade their learning process.
Thus, this bill was presented for approval and implementation in the context of various social, economic, and social issues generated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of the pandemic, Pennsylvania's state incurred significant economic loss in the form of the closure of businesses and loss of jobs. Unemployment gained new highs, especially in the low-wage sector; as a result, the state faces a lingering unemployment issue (The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2022). Thus, the lack of new job opportunities in the industrial and social sectors also facilitated the passing of this bill, as retaining students for one additional year will reduce the number of annually produced young unemployed individuals. Thus, it is safe to assume that specific social and economic conditions caused by the unexpected impact of the COVID-19 pandemic became one of the conducive factors that helped the state pass this bill. Based on the loss of the academic year and the impending economic crisis, this bill had a great chance of getting passed, and the same thing happened afterward.
Evaluation of the Policy
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was the most devastating and intense for the educational sector, especially for school education. The closure of schools all over the world deprived students of the opportunity of physical learning; this problem deteriorated students' learning by impairing their ability to learn via social interaction in and outside the class. The extent and impact of this social problem manifest manifold after assessing its global impact. Based on the figures issued by UNESCO, this pandemic has disrupted the learning curve of approximately 290.5 million students across the globe (Tarkar, 2020). Furthermore, the lack of classroom education significantly impaired students' academic and extracurricular performance; as a result, the learning skills of the students who used online education to pass exams proved inferior to their predecessors.
Most significantly, the impact of online education and the lack of such facilities in the majority of low-income areas and government schools significantly deteriorated the learning process of school students. This problem has been more pronounced in students with special abilities, as most of their learning is based on physical activities. As a result, online education rendered their learning process almost ineffectual, as they were not allowed to engage in physical interactions (Reimers, 2022). These scholarly views on the impact of COVID-19 on school education validate the notion that the school closure has deteriorated students' theoretical and practical abilities. Implementing some effective remedial measures to recover this tremendous loss is mandatory.
Moreover, the online education system crippled the ability of educational institutions to impart quality education on account of various factors. For instance, the staff's lack of technical capabilities affected the teaching process as several teachers could not provide quality education via online classes. In the same way, the dis...