Root Cause and Policy Goals

Read the following stories and answer the questions that follow.

STORY A Students in Ms. Washington’s class are frustrated by the challenges they face in getting to school every day. Even though almost all students at their school ride the city’s public bus to get there, their school district only gives free bus passes if a student lives 2.5 miles or more from school, and the district cannot afford their own school buses. Moreover, students in Ms. Washington’s class attend school in the neighborhood that has the highest rate of poverty in the city, and it’s the only school in the district with no bus stop. With challenges like these, it’s no wonder their school has the highest rate of student tardiness and absences in the district.

What is the ROOT CAUSE of this issue?

Based on the students’ Root Cause, what is a potential Policy Goal they could advocate for?

What level of government would these students focus on?

Do you see any evidence of systemic inequities in this story? If so, what?

STORY B Students in Mr. Eliot’s class are concerned about the mental health needs of their friends and peers. There are many reasons why students in their school are experiencing stress, anxiety, and depression, and while students want to do something to solve this issue, they are concerned that the problem is too complicated to make a difference. Mr. Eliot encourages them to think about solutions to the problem instead of thinking about the individual root causes of each student’s mental health needs and work backward. Students do some research and discover that their school only has two social workers for over 1500 students! All of the cities and towns around them use the clinical model of one social worker per every 250 students.

Based on the students’ Root Cause, what is a potential Policy Goal they could advocate for?

What level of government would these students focus on?

Do you see any evidence of systemic inequalities in this story? If so, what?

Make a prediction about what you’ll learn during your class research using the RACES writing strategy.

I predict our root cause for our focus issue will be...