Education School Initiates Program in Social Policy

A now doctoral program designed to bridge the gap between the classroom and public policy will start next September at the Graduate School of Education.

About 12 students will enter the new Education and Social Policy program next Fall. Each will spend about three years combining course work at the Ed School with a supervised internship in his specific field of interest.

David K. Cohen, research associate in Education and director of the new program, and other Ed School faculty members, have been recruiting in Model Cities agencies, school systems, and elsewhere across the country for people interested in applying to the program.

Some of the courses relevant to the new program are already offered at the Ed School, but new ones will also be introduced. Subject matter will include research methodology, data analysis, and the relationship between research and political or educational change.

Internship

In the internship part of their program, students will work with such professionals as educational planners and state legislators.

"We want to train people concerned with change in the cities, and at the same time respond to the terrific need for people in the state and federal bureaucracies." Cohen said yesterday.

Most of the faculty members who will teach courses related to the program are associated with either the Ed School's Center for Educational Policy Research or the joint Law-Education Center.

The Ed School faculty approved the curriculum for the new program last Spring at the same time that it dropped three purely academic programs-in sociology, politics, and education.