Right Question Institute
Encyclopedia
The Right Question Institute is a small nonprofit organization
based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts whose mission is to "promote the use of a simple, powerful, evidence-based strategy that helps all people, no matter their level of income, literacy or education, learn to help themselves." Founded in 1990 by Dan Rothstein, former Director of Neighborhood Planning for the city of Lawrence, Massachusetts
, Luz Santana, a Lawrence resident and parent advocate, and Agnes S. Bain, a Lawrence resident and Professor of Government at Suffolk University
. The Right Question Institute has worked in dozens of different fields across the country and in several continents.
program in Lawrence, MA. Parents in the program reported that they were not going in to their children’s schools because they did not know what questions to ask teachers and administrators. Hearing this prompted founders to consider the importance of question-formulation skills, specifically in relation to self-advocacy and advocacy on behalf of one’s children. Soon after this experience, founders started what was then called the Right Question Project in an effort to help low-income parents learn these skills.
Through the 1990s the work of the Right Question Project expanded significantly. RQP developed the Question Formulation Technique (QFT)™ and Framework for Accountable Decision-Making (FADM)™ as teaching tools to help people problem solve and self-advocate in various settings. The organization continued its work in parent involvement while beginning to work in adult education
, community organizing
, voter engagement, and community economic development
, among other areas. It was also during this early period that RQP developed the concept of Microdemocracy.
Throughout the 1990s and in the early 2000s RQP conducted workshops across the country, and the organization began to collaborate with international partners.
In the 2000s RQP continued to evolve. The organization began working in the health care field, examining the effect of the Right Question Strategy on patient activation
. RQP also started work in K-12 education, examining the value of teaching students to ask their own questions.
In 2011, the organization changed its name from the Right Question Project (RQP) to the Right Question Institute (RQI).
and effective democratic action
."
, or Medicaid-funded
health services. On average, low-income Americans participate less than higher income Americans in traditional forms of democratic action, such as voting or demonstrations. RQI theorizes that encounters with public agencies can turn into democratic action when individuals have certain key democratic skills: formulating questions and focusing on decisions. These skills enable individuals to “a. use specific criteria to expect and require accountable decision-making and; b. ask their own questions, and participate effectively for the first time in decision-making processes that affect them.” RQI targets front line workers as catalysts for democratic action as they are able to teach RQI’s methods to the people they serve.
classrooms across the country as a strategy to help students generate their own questions. Building on experience working with parents, who named for themselves their barrier to participation, the QFT is a structured exercise that takes students through a process that includes divergent
, convergent
and metacognitive thinking
. Past partners of RQI include GED
, adult literacy, job training and workforce preparation programs in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and beyond, primarily funded by Jane’s Trust. The Institute partners with K-12 teachers in a wide variety of settings.
Directors Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana co-authored a book entitled Make Just One Change - Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions to be published by Harvard Education Press in September 2011.
Examples of RQI’s work in health care include:
• RQP Mental Health Intervention: In 2008 the organization partnered with the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research (CMMHR) to conduct a study on using the RQ Strategy with patients who were primarily Latino. A report of the study stated that “Results demonstrate the intervention’s potential to increase self-reported patient activation, retention, and attendance in mental health care for minority populations."
• Medical Education Pilot Project: The organization partnered with the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education
in a pilot program that tested the relevance of using the Right Question Strategy in medical education. CCNY medical students were trained to teach the Strategy to patients in health center waiting rooms in Brooklyn and the Bronx.
, such as low-income Americans. After conducting a pilot program in 2004, the Institute implemented its Voter Engagement Strategy in 10 states: Arizona, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
RQI has also worked in citizen action initiatives, supporting citizens with RQI's educational strategy. The strategy attempts to enable individuals to recognize that there are decisions made on many levels of public institutions and government, participate in decision-making processes, and hold local elected officials accountable. The RQ Strategy has appeared all across the country, from the New Hampshire welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
to The Neighborhoods Partnership Network in New Orleans, two years after Hurricane Katrina
struck the Gulf Coast. The Center for Collaborative Planning, based in Sacramento, CA, taught the RQ strategy as part of a coalition-building effort. This effort addresses the needs of low-income families in many of California’s poorest counties.
In the fields of community organizing and coalition building, notable RQI work sites include the Isleta Reservation in New Mexico, where a resident used the RQ Strategy to focus on the needs of youth in her Native American community, and in Lawrence, Massachusetts
. Lawrence Community Works (LCW) featured the use of RQI's methods in their PODER Leadership Development Institute to design strategies for holding accountable local decision-makers, for recruiting more people to the organization and for including more citizens in the municipal budgeting process.
RQI has worked on community economic development
projects in New Bedford, MA in the fishing industry and with the Hawaii
Department of Health in a sugar cane plantation on the Big Island of Hawaii. Residents focused on the allocation of job training funds, determination of land use of the sugar cane fields, provision of health care, and assignment of former company-owned housing.
In early childhood education
, RQI partnered with Associated Early Care and Education, serving low and moderate-income communities in the Greater Boston Area. Other early childhood programs that have worked with RQI include Head Start
, Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth (HIPPY), Even Start, and The Parent Services Program.
, the Dean of Harvard Law School
, referenced the organization in the Justine Wise Polier Memorial Lecture: “One impressive effort, called the Right Question Project...prepares parents to advocate, to participate in decision-making processes and to hold decision-makers accountable...What I appreciate about the Right Question Institute is its effort to meet parents where they are. Equally important is its recognition that no system, no professionals, no individual dealing daily with large numbers of people can meet all their needs without the avid involvement of those whose needs are to be met...”
The work of the Right Question Institute is featured in Data Wise, a book on using assessment results to improve teaching and learning, edited by Kathryn Parker Boudett, Elizabeth A. City, and Richard J. Murnane
. The Right Question Institute's work in parent involvement appears in several publications, including Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family/School Partnerships by Anne T. Henderson, Vivian Johnson, Karen L. Mapp, and Don Davies. Other books that refer to RQI are The Vulnerable Child: What Really Hurts America's Children And What We Can Do About It by Richard Weissbourd and Making Our High Schools Better: How Parents and Teachers Can Work Together by Anne Wescott Dodd and Jean L. Konzal. The Institute is also referenced in numerous articles.
Foundations that have given financial support to the Institute include:
Nonprofit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts whose mission is to "promote the use of a simple, powerful, evidence-based strategy that helps all people, no matter their level of income, literacy or education, learn to help themselves." Founded in 1990 by Dan Rothstein, former Director of Neighborhood Planning for the city of Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States on the Merrimack River. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a total population of 76,377. Surrounding communities include Methuen to the north, Andover to the southwest, and North Andover to the southeast. It and Salem are...
, Luz Santana, a Lawrence resident and parent advocate, and Agnes S. Bain, a Lawrence resident and Professor of Government at Suffolk University
Suffolk University
Suffolk University is a private, non-sectarian, university located in Boston, Massachusetts and with over 16,000 students it is the third largest university in Boston...
. The Right Question Institute has worked in dozens of different fields across the country and in several continents.
History
The idea behind the Right Question Strategy originated in 1990, when RQI founders worked together on a drop-out preventionDropping out
Dropping out means leaving a group for either practical reasons, necessities or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves....
program in Lawrence, MA. Parents in the program reported that they were not going in to their children’s schools because they did not know what questions to ask teachers and administrators. Hearing this prompted founders to consider the importance of question-formulation skills, specifically in relation to self-advocacy and advocacy on behalf of one’s children. Soon after this experience, founders started what was then called the Right Question Project in an effort to help low-income parents learn these skills.
Through the 1990s the work of the Right Question Project expanded significantly. RQP developed the Question Formulation Technique (QFT)™ and Framework for Accountable Decision-Making (FADM)™ as teaching tools to help people problem solve and self-advocate in various settings. The organization continued its work in parent involvement while beginning to work in adult education
Adult education
Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...
, community organizing
Community organizing
Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. A core goal of community organizing is to generate durable power for an organization representing the community, allowing it to influence...
, voter engagement, and community economic development
Community economic development
Community Economic Development is a field of study that actively elicits community involvement when working with government, and private sectors to build strong communities, industries, and markets...
, among other areas. It was also during this early period that RQP developed the concept of Microdemocracy.
Throughout the 1990s and in the early 2000s RQP conducted workshops across the country, and the organization began to collaborate with international partners.
In the 2000s RQP continued to evolve. The organization began working in the health care field, examining the effect of the Right Question Strategy on patient activation
Patient-centered care
Patient-centered care presumes active involvement of patients and their families in the design of new care models and in decision-making about individual options for treatment...
. RQP also started work in K-12 education, examining the value of teaching students to ask their own questions.
In 2011, the organization changed its name from the Right Question Project (RQP) to the Right Question Institute (RQI).
Strategy
The Right Question Strategy teaches two skills: a) how to formulate questions, and b) how to focus on decisions and use specific criteria for accountable decision-making. The organization's website states their belief that "Question-formulation and focusing on decisions are foundational skills, essential for effective self-advocacySelf-advocacy
Self-advocacy refers to the civil rights movement for people with developmental disabilities, also called cognitive or intellectual disabilities, and other disabilities. It is also an important term in the disability rights movement, referring to people with disabilities taking control of their own...
and effective democratic action
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
."
Microdemocracy
Microdemocracy is defined by the Right Question Institute as, “individuals using essential democratic skills to participate in decisions made in their ordinary encounters with public institutions.” Examples of these public institutions include a child’s school, a job training program, the welfare officeWelfare
Welfare refers to a broad discourse which may hold certain implications regarding the provision of a minimal level of wellbeing and social support for all citizens without the stigma of charity. This is termed "social solidarity"...
, or Medicaid-funded
Medicaid
Medicaid is the United States health program for certain people and families with low incomes and resources. It is a means-tested program that is jointly funded by the state and federal governments, and is managed by the states. People served by Medicaid are U.S. citizens or legal permanent...
health services. On average, low-income Americans participate less than higher income Americans in traditional forms of democratic action, such as voting or demonstrations. RQI theorizes that encounters with public agencies can turn into democratic action when individuals have certain key democratic skills: formulating questions and focusing on decisions. These skills enable individuals to “a. use specific criteria to expect and require accountable decision-making and; b. ask their own questions, and participate effectively for the first time in decision-making processes that affect them.” RQI targets front line workers as catalysts for democratic action as they are able to teach RQI’s methods to the people they serve.
Education
RQI’s Question Formulation Technique (QFT) has been used in K-12 and adult educationAdult education
Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...
classrooms across the country as a strategy to help students generate their own questions. Building on experience working with parents, who named for themselves their barrier to participation, the QFT is a structured exercise that takes students through a process that includes divergent
Divergent thinking
Divergent thinking is a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions. It is often used in conjunction with convergent thinking, which follows a particular set of logical steps to arrive at one solution, which in some cases is a "correct" solution...
, convergent
Convergent thinking
Convergent thinking is a term coined by Joy Paul Guilford as the opposite of divergent thinking. It generally means the ability to give the "correct" answer to standard questions that do not require significant creativity, for instance in most tasks in school and on standardized multiple-choice...
and metacognitive thinking
Metacognition
Metacognition is defined as "cognition about cognition", or "knowing about knowing." It can take many forms; it includes knowledge about when and how to use particular strategies for learning or for problem solving...
. Past partners of RQI include GED
GED
General Educational Development tests are a group of five subject tests which, when passed, certify that the taker has American or Canadian high school-level academic skills...
, adult literacy, job training and workforce preparation programs in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and beyond, primarily funded by Jane’s Trust. The Institute partners with K-12 teachers in a wide variety of settings.
Directors Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana co-authored a book entitled Make Just One Change - Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions to be published by Harvard Education Press in September 2011.
Healthcare
RQI’s work in health care has focused on increasing patient engagement. The organization has stated that using the RQ Strategy allows patients to “take greater ownership of their own health care and partner more effectively with their health care providers.”Examples of RQI’s work in health care include:
• RQP Mental Health Intervention: In 2008 the organization partnered with the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research (CMMHR) to conduct a study on using the RQ Strategy with patients who were primarily Latino. A report of the study stated that “Results demonstrate the intervention’s potential to increase self-reported patient activation, retention, and attendance in mental health care for minority populations."
• Medical Education Pilot Project: The organization partnered with the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education
Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education
The Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education is now an eight-year medical program that was established at The City College of the City University of New York in New York City...
in a pilot program that tested the relevance of using the Right Question Strategy in medical education. CCNY medical students were trained to teach the Strategy to patients in health center waiting rooms in Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Parent Involvement
The Right Question Institute began its work in parent involvement in the 1990s. The three-part strategy aims to build parent capacity to a) support their children's education, b) monitor their progress, and c) advocate for them when necessary.Other Fields
The Right Question Strategy has been used in efforts to increase voting among populations that traditionally participate less in civic actionCivic engagement
Civic engagement or civic participation has been defined as "Individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern."-Forms:...
, such as low-income Americans. After conducting a pilot program in 2004, the Institute implemented its Voter Engagement Strategy in 10 states: Arizona, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
RQI has also worked in citizen action initiatives, supporting citizens with RQI's educational strategy. The strategy attempts to enable individuals to recognize that there are decisions made on many levels of public institutions and government, participate in decision-making processes, and hold local elected officials accountable. The RQ Strategy has appeared all across the country, from the New Hampshire welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is one of the United States of America's federal assistance programs. It began on July 2, 1997, and succeeded the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, providing cash assistance to indigent American families with dependent children through the...
to The Neighborhoods Partnership Network in New Orleans, two years after Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
struck the Gulf Coast. The Center for Collaborative Planning, based in Sacramento, CA, taught the RQ strategy as part of a coalition-building effort. This effort addresses the needs of low-income families in many of California’s poorest counties.
In the fields of community organizing and coalition building, notable RQI work sites include the Isleta Reservation in New Mexico, where a resident used the RQ Strategy to focus on the needs of youth in her Native American community, and in Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States on the Merrimack River. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a total population of 76,377. Surrounding communities include Methuen to the north, Andover to the southwest, and North Andover to the southeast. It and Salem are...
. Lawrence Community Works (LCW) featured the use of RQI's methods in their PODER Leadership Development Institute to design strategies for holding accountable local decision-makers, for recruiting more people to the organization and for including more citizens in the municipal budgeting process.
RQI has worked on community economic development
Economic development
Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area...
projects in New Bedford, MA in the fishing industry and with the Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
Department of Health in a sugar cane plantation on the Big Island of Hawaii. Residents focused on the allocation of job training funds, determination of land use of the sugar cane fields, provision of health care, and assignment of former company-owned housing.
In early childhood education
Early childhood education
Early childhood education is the formal teaching and care of young children by people other than their family or in settings outside of the home. 'Early childhood' is usually defined as before the age of normal schooling - five years in most nations, though the U.S...
, RQI partnered with Associated Early Care and Education, serving low and moderate-income communities in the Greater Boston Area. Other early childhood programs that have worked with RQI include Head Start
Head Start
The Head Start Program is a program of the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families....
, Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth (HIPPY), Even Start, and The Parent Services Program.
International Applications
- Romania, Poland, and Russia: In the late 1990s, representatives of organizations from Romania, Poland, and Russia, with the support of the German Marshall FundGerman Marshall FundThe German Marshall Fund of the United States is a nonpartisan American public policy and grantmaking institution dedicated to promoting greater cooperation and understanding between North America and Europe....
, visited a series of non-governmental organizations in the United States, stopping last to visit the then Right Question Project. The tour was focused on strategies for building democracy. The representatives learned the Right Question Strategy, which they then used in their work when they returned home.
- Israel: In 2010 RQI delivered a training through Shatil, an organization backed by the New Israel FundNew Israel FundThe New Israel Fund is a U.S. based non-profit organization established in 1979, and describes its objective as social justice and equality for all Israelis.-Ideology:...
. This work was funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Office of the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI)Middle East Partnership InitiativeThe Middle East Partnership Initiative is a U.S. State Department program that supports reform efforts in the Middle East and North Africa...
. Participants in the training came from various BedouinBedouinThe Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...
women’s empowerment groups in southern Israel.
- South Africa: The Institute for Democratic Alternatives in South Africa (IDASA) has used the Right Question Strategy in a leadership development course for civil society leaders in the KwaZulu Natal province. IDASA has also used the Strategy in its work with abused women in the PretoriaPretoriaPretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
region.
Reactions
Professor Martha MinowMartha Minow
Martha Louise Minow is the Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law and the Dean of Harvard Law School. She teaches civil procedure, constitutional law, family law, international criminal justice, jurisprudence, law and education, nonprofit organizations, and the public law workshop...
, the Dean of Harvard Law School
Dean of Harvard Law School
The Dean of Harvard Law School is the head of Harvard Law School. The current Dean is Martha Minow, the 12th person, and second woman to hold the post.-List of Deans of Harvard Law School:...
, referenced the organization in the Justine Wise Polier Memorial Lecture: “One impressive effort, called the Right Question Project...prepares parents to advocate, to participate in decision-making processes and to hold decision-makers accountable...What I appreciate about the Right Question Institute is its effort to meet parents where they are. Equally important is its recognition that no system, no professionals, no individual dealing daily with large numbers of people can meet all their needs without the avid involvement of those whose needs are to be met...”
The work of the Right Question Institute is featured in Data Wise, a book on using assessment results to improve teaching and learning, edited by Kathryn Parker Boudett, Elizabeth A. City, and Richard J. Murnane
Richard Murnane
Richard Murnane is an economist and the Juliana W. and William Foss Thompson Professor of Education and Society at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has made important contributions to our understanding of education policy and the relationship between the economy and education. He has...
. The Right Question Institute's work in parent involvement appears in several publications, including Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family/School Partnerships by Anne T. Henderson, Vivian Johnson, Karen L. Mapp, and Don Davies. Other books that refer to RQI are The Vulnerable Child: What Really Hurts America's Children And What We Can Do About It by Richard Weissbourd and Making Our High Schools Better: How Parents and Teachers Can Work Together by Anne Wescott Dodd and Jean L. Konzal. The Institute is also referenced in numerous articles.
Funding
The Right Question Institute is funded by individual donors, service-related revenue, and foundation grants.Foundations that have given financial support to the Institute include:
- The Boston FoundationThe Boston FoundationThe Boston Foundation, founded in 1915, is one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the nation. Serving the Greater Boston area, it is made up of some 900 separate charitable funds established by thousands of donors over more than 90 years...
- The Cabot Family Charitable Trust
- Carnegie CorporationCarnegie Corporation of New YorkCarnegie Corporation of New York, which was established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding," is one of the oldest, largest and most influential of American foundations...
- The Germanacos Foundation
- Jane’s Trust
- The Joyce FoundationJoyce FoundationThe Joyce Foundation is a charitable foundation based in Chicago in the United States and operating principally in the Great Lakes region.The Foundation primarily funds organizations in the Great Lakes region .-Programs:* Education: Focuses on public schools in Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee;...
- The David and Lucile Packard FoundationDavid and Lucile Packard FoundationThe David and Lucile Packard Foundation is a private foundation that provides grants to not-for-profit organizations. It was created in 1964 by David Packard and his wife Lucile Salter Packard. Following David Packard's death in 1996, the Foundation became the beneficiary of part of his estate...
- Partners HealthCare Community BenefitsPartners HealthCarePartners HealthCare is a non-profit organization that owns several hospitals in Massachusetts, primarily in the Boston area. Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital founded the organization in 1994...
- Rockefeller Brothers FundRockefeller Brothers FundThe Rockefeller Brothers Fund , , is an international philanthropic organisation created and run by members of the Rockefeller family. It was set up in New York City in 1940 as the primary philanthropic vehicle of the five famous Rockefeller brothers: John D...
- The Rhode Island Foundation
- The Proteus Fund
- The Wallace Foundation
- The Whitman Institute