Education

Organizational Development Review: New Mexico Public Education Department

The New Mexico Department of Public Education hired Public Works to conduct an organizational review. The purpose of the review was to uncover opportunities for improvement and to provide recommendations for the Department on ways it can improve customer services, and thereby respond to stakeholder needs more effectively. The review identified how well stakeholder needs were being met and how assessment and accountability tools and services were being delivered. This project included surveys of hundreds of New Mexico teachers and school administrators on the workings of various state government education-related functions. Read final report.

School Construction: Reforming the California School Construction Process

For years, the school construction approval process in California was needlessly complex, with numerous steps involving as many as 40 state agencies. Further, because so many entities controlled their own piece of the overall process, no agency had ever taken responsibility for ascertaining and enumerating in one place the entire process, let alone making it easy for school districts and parents to understand and navigate. The State and Consumer Services Agency - a 12-department Cabinet agency that oversees two of the largest state entities involved in public school construction projects - engaged Public Works to sort out the morass of rules and requirements and to make them intelligible and accessible for school officials, concerned parents, and citizens. By working with various entities involved in the public school construction process, Public Works developed a step-by-step school construction primer that became the centerpiece of a state school construction-focused website (click here to access). Public Works also offered recommendations on how to reform and improve this complicated process.

School Safety: Crisis Response Boxes

When faced with a major critical incident, school principals have to react quickly. At the request of the California Attorney General's Office and the California Superintendent of Public Instruction, Public Works created a tool that would give school principals all the facts they would need to gain immediate control of a crisis. After interviewing police and school principals who dealt with major school shootings, Public Works developed a Crisis Response Box, which includes resources and protocols to guide principals through critical incidents. This tool has been proved so useful that other states like Mississippi, North Carolina, and Washington are now using it too.

Career Technical Education for the 21st Century: California Department of Education

The New Economy requires employees with increasingly sophisticated skills and abilities. This new workforce reality stands in stark contrast to the persistent but now outdated image of career technical education (CTE) as preparation for immediate entry into the workforce and a curriculum for students judged to be less than academically At the request of the California Department of Education, Public Works prepared a report that described issues concerning 21st Century workforce needs and made recommendations to modernize California's career technical education (CTE). The study included a discussion of adapting CTE to meet demands of the new economy, a synopsis of key CTE programs, and detailed recommendations for achieving modernization and preparing Californians for the 21st Century workplace. The approach identified by Public Works was centered upon core elements that link individual programs adapted to schools and school districts throughout the state.

Applied Doctorates in Education for California

The California State University Chancellor's Office commissioned Public Works to study the need for educators with doctoral level training in California schools and universities. Although "academic" in both subject and substance, it was anything but in result. The report galvanized legislative action to make applied doctoral education programs more readily available to aspiring teachers and administrators throughout the state - including those in rural areas and minority communities. To read the report, click here.

College Scholarships: West Virginia College Scholarship Program

Only 16.3 percent of West Virginians over the age of 25 have a college degree, compared to almost 25 percent in the United States as a whole, hindering the state's economic development and employment opportunities for West Virginians. Public Works helped Governor Bob Wise develop the landmark West Virginia Providing Real Opportunities for Maximizing In-State Student Excellence (PROMISE) Scholarship Program. Through PROMISE, each West Virginia high school graduate who completes school in West Virginia with a 3.0 grade point average in the core and overall coursework as well as a composite ACT score of at least 21, or a combined SAT score of 1,000, a full tuition scholarship to a state college or university or an equivalent dollar scholarship to an in-state private college. The PROMISE Scholarship is based on the student's achievements - not on his or her parent's financial resources, the college's resources, or other factors. This investment in West Virginia's students is tied directly to the achievement on the part of the individual.

Student Loan Program Performance Review: California Student Aid Commission

The California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) was directed by the California legislature to conduct a performance review of CSAC's auxiliary institution, EDFUND, the second largest student loan guarantee agency in the United States. Working under severe time constraints and difficult cooperation issues between CSAC and EDFUND, Public Works completed a performance review that recommended tightening EDFUND's budgeting and performance compensation practices, as well as closer oversight by the Commission of EDFUND operations. This effort ultimately resulted in the Commission's decision to restructure the EDFUND board of directors and implement many of the recommended fiscal reforms.

Early Childhood Education: California Children and Families First Commission

Public Works produced a several-hundred page synthesis for the Commission of all current research on early childhood care and education. This helped form the technical background for the early childhood section of the 10-year revision to the state Master Plan for Education by a California legislative joint committee.

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