Seeking advice

[dburke]

Hi,

I am not yet a swarm user, but I've joined the list at Gene's 
suggestion to seek your advice about a possible use I have in mind for 
swarm.

I'm at NSF in the Education and Human Resources Directorate working 
with our Systemic Initiatives progams.  These are a set of programs, 
urban, statewide and rural which make awards for the systemic reform 
of K-12 science and mathematics education leading to high achievement 
for all students and a changed system which will maintain this beyond 
the period of our award.  We require awardees to reform their 
standards, curriculum, instructional methods, student assessment, 
professional development, convergence of resources, policy, parent and 
community support and report on the impact of these changes yearly.  
While this essentially describes our theory of what it will take to 
enable high achievement, in my mind, there is no really good 
conception of what a school district is or how these factors interact 
to drive what we want.  

I'm trying to determine whether swarm might be a good modeling tool 
for me to use to represent a district (may basic concern is with urban 
school districts) and to examine the role changes in these various 
components play in supporting student achievement.  Are these the most 
critical factors?  Are all of them necessary or are some more equal 
than others?  These are the questions I want to deal with.  

My background is in molecular and general biology so I am approaching 
this by kicking around models based on optimizing ecosystems, single 
organisms or single species.

With this long preamble: do you think swarm might be a good modeling 
tool for this and do you have any suggestions for other models I might 
use for school systems?

Any advice will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Dan Burke
Senior Staff Associate
Office of the Assistant Director
Education and Human Resources Directorate
NSF 
address@hidden
(703) 306-1605 ext. 6851