1. Based on your field experience observations and interactions, what social challenges have you seen manifested in classrooms during your visit(s)?  How were these handled?

2. Why do you think providing grades as the measure of academic standards mastery is no longer enough?  What alternatives do you see as being better?

3. What populations would you include in the historically underachieving category?  Why?

4. High quality teachers are experienced, prepared and licensed.  Looking over your program plan for completion, how do you feel about your preparation to enter as a high quality teacher?

5. What cultural capital do each of you bring to this classroom?  Does everyone bring cultural capital into the instructional situation?  How will you bring this out from the resistant students?

6. What are your thoughts on “zero tolerance” discipline policies?

7. The description provided of some schools mirroring prison environments is very stark.  Do you think this is a fair representation of what they are doing?

8. How do we promote social justice in our classroom?  On our campus? In our personal actions?

9. Why do you think there is such an importance placed on how someone looks today?  What challenges does that create?

10. Physical activity is a key piece of the effort to combat childhood obesity.  Given the length of the school day is not being increased, what challenges do you see with fitting in extra activity time?

11. When and to what degree should sex education be incorporated into the school curriculum?

12. Do any of you remember bullying incidents in your school? How were they resolved?

13. What societal challenges do you think contribute to the number of teens contemplating suicide?

14. How can high-needs schools attract and retain high quality teachers to help close the achievement gap?

15. Does your state use Common Core State Standards? If not, what does your state use for curriculum?

16. Why is the achievement gap between black and Hispanic students and white students not closing? What can be done to resolve this issue?

17. Why are U.S. high schools only graduating four out of five students within four years of starting high school?

18. What social factors contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline, and what can schools do to help combat this trend?

19. In your opinion, what does multicultural curriculum look like? What does it NOT look like? Do you know of any schools currently using this curriculum well? Describe how they are successful.

20. How has changing the national child nutrition program ruined school lunches, in many parents’ and teachers’ opinions?

21. In your opinion, will encouraging children to move and play more decrease the national epidemic of childhood obesity? If not, what do you think needs to be done to reduce childhood obesity?

22. Do you think the teaching of abstinence is sufficient for sexual education in public schools?

23. How has the internet played a role in increasing the incidence of adolescent suicide?