A research report issued just yesterday revealed that voter turnout among 18-24 year olds increased at a much greater rate than any other age group between the 2000 and 2004 elections. The increase was 11% for 18-24 year olds as opposed to an overall increase of 4% for the general public.

That's right. Young people kicked butt. Will we do so again in 2008? I hope so. Because I'll be 24 when the '08 election happens, and even if the candidate that I vote for loses, I hope my age group wins. It's probably the less important competition, but at least it can be a consolation prize.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 07:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's been a lot of debate about the landmark No Child Left Behind Act in a number of different circles. But as far as creativity is concerned, this takes the cake.

Ethan and I have watched this video at least once a week for the past couple of months since its come out. Apparently, the American Federation of Teachers spent (hundreds of?) thousands of dollars out of their marketing budget to put this video together.

A number of things stand out about this video to us... some unintentionally funny, some thought-provoking, some downright strange and borderline unbelievable. But we'll wait to hear what you think before we share some of our thoughts! Post a comment with your first thoughts.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The rate at which high school students are dropping out of school has drawn a lot of attention lately from education reformers and researchers. It turns out that the statistic--which one might think would be a very simple one to measure--is anything but. Apparently, two very respected researchers have found conflicting evidence that leads them to disagree about the percentage of students completing high school. And the disagreement isn't trivial: depending on who you believe, we're talking about almost 500,000 students every year who are either dropping out or staying in school.

How is this possible, one might ask? Well it turns out that one set of research, completed by economist Larry Mishel, which relies on US Department of Education data and US Census surveys, something like 80%-83% of students are completing high school. Political scientist Jay Greene, however, asserts that the real figure is closer to 67% (and closer to 50% in cities), and he draws this conclusion from data given out by schools and school districts directly.

Which number is right? It's hard to say -- and therein lies the biggest problem. Putting aside for a moment the obvious policy implications that the two difference conclusions would produce, I think it says a great deal about our priorities as a nation that we don't actually know who or how many of our children are completing high school. Millions of dollars are spent each year monitoring complex statistics like consumer behavior, cross-sector unemployment rates, stock market projections, and others. Even medium sized businesses can now tell you with remarkable clarity who their customers are, what they are buying, and where and when they are buying it. But our nation, the United States of America, doesn't know how many of its kids aren't even completing a basic level of education?

The good news is that people are beginning to focus on this graduation rate debate with increasing concern. Let us hope that this concern is capitalized into concrete action -- and let us do our own part to see to it that this happens.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 01:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello fellow members of the "Our Education" community! I'm Sam Ritter, a high school senior from West Hartford, Connecticut. I've been involved with Our Education for a couple of years now, mostly with the Student Voice Project . I met Aaron and Ethan for the first time back in the fall, and have been working to spread the word about this incredible project to spread awareness about student empowerment.

Often when I am talking about student representation, I find myself using the phrase "meaningful"...

...To me, "meaningful" is the opposite of "token" representation. When representation is meaningful, it means that people want to hear what we students have to say. They recognize that we deserve a place in our own education. There is nobody that faces the realities of the system more than the students. And while nobody is asking to be the only voice in education, we should be granted avenue through which we have as much clout as we deserve. And we deserve a lot.

My first experience with meaningful representation was as my school's Board of Education Representative. But it wasn't always that way. I was fighing against years of student apathy. The BOE Rep. was expected to sit there in meetings (at the table with the other members) and not say much. To speak only if spoken to. To not cause a disruption. I made an active decision to change the trend. I wanted to make the Student Representative what it was designed to be, a voice of the students to the board.

I think that I succeeded. I spoke up. I effected change. I've been told the by Board members. As someone who was in the schools, I was able to question the assumptions made by my superintendant and by board members. I was able to say "no, this is how it really is..."

But the forces that I had to wade through to get there really bother me. How did it get to be this way? Our current mayor was once Board of Education representative, and I have his assurances that he was not complacent. Where did it change over?

I can see two reasons, student apathy and college resumes. The two combine to create token representation. When students do things, anything, just for the resume, it infuriates me. Especially because I try to do only activities that I am passionate about. It just bothers me that you would do something just to try and impress someone. Do it for yourself.

I battle it every day. As student body president, I preside over the Student Association, a collection of students elected to serve the school. And from day one, you can tell who is there because they have passion and who is there to say that they have done something. And while you can't expect every student to want to work to make their school a better place, I certainly expect it from those who volunteered to serve it.

This is what Our Education means to me. It is a collection of people passionate about student representation. It is a place where we all come together to work towards a common goal. Last time I checked, there were over 4000 people who shared that idea. This organizations brings together passionate students, I've met many of them. Together we have so much power.

Every time I think about Our Education I think about Aaron and Ethan, the directors, sitting in their office in Washington working so that when students like me are finished with school, we can join them. And I know I won't be the only one. To me, the power of Our Education lies in its sensibility. Liberals, conservatives, and everyone else can see that there are students who have something to contribute.

And just like nobody expects every eligible adult to run for office (or even to vote, for that matter), and nobody expects that every student is going to demand a voice. But we have a very special passion. We know that we have something to say, and we will fight for a meaningful forum for our energies.

Posted by Guest at 09:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I think we need a fundamental shift in the way we think about public education in the U.S. It seems that our lawmakers and perhaps even some of our citizens think of public education as a drain on the economy, an extraneous expense, a side item, a black hole in the budget, a perpetually unsolvable dilemma. However, what if we looked at public education from some different lenses. I'll pick two to start with, and would love ideas for additional paradigms to consider. The first two will be Economics and Christianity, topics about which I am somewhat familiar.

1. Public Education from an Economic Perspective: What if our lawmakers looked at public education instead of as a black hole but as a wise, lucrative investment that will pay off for the country? Perhaps this issue could be framed in terms of the new global economy where thousands of American jobs are being outsourced every year. Some call our new economy in the U.S. a "knowledge economy" which means that Americans need to know and understand more than the basics in order to compete. Public schools in this country, instead of preparing students for this knowledge economy are miserably failing students. Students who graduate from schools in areas with small property tax revenue are left knowledge-less and therefore jobless. Why don't economists and lawmakers see this as a clear investment opportunity... putting more creativity, money, and resources into this problem now can pay off exponentially later! Furthermore, it is common knowledge that the better a person's education, the less likely he/she is to 1) to rely on the state for welfare funds and coverage of medical and other expenses, 2) to engage in delinquent activity and therefore to tax the criminal justice system, 3) to be unemployed, and many more. Putting money in on the front end saves all kinds of money and prevents poor outcomes later on.

2. Public Education from a Christian Perspective: The cross section between religion and politics these days is quite puzzling. The issues commonly brought into the debate are same-sex marriage and abortion. However, I find public education to be a much more troubling and pressing issue today due to the sheer numbers of children we are talking about. The statistics on students who are dropping out of high school, failing their state's standardized tests, not being admitted or not attending school, etc. exponentially surpass the statistics on the number of same-sex partners who seek marriage and the number of abortions sought in this country. I think we need to talk about how many children's lives we are destroying with the public education system as it stands right now. From a Christian perspective, we are not serving "the least of these" whatsoever! We are privilaging the rich with phenomenal educations and condemning the poor to substandard lives. I believe this should be the MOST pressing issue for Christians right now.

Looking at public education from these different paradigms I think makes it a much more appealing endeavor to fund and to advocate for. What do you think?

Stacy Tolos is a Junior at Vanderbilt University. She is a fellow with Young People For, a project of People for the American Way, and has worked with Idealist.org, Ashoka, and other leading non-profits.

Posted by Guest at 09:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Starting today we're going to be inviting a handful of high school and college students from around the nation to blog about some of their thoughts oneducation, school reform, and youth in today's world. Each guest's entry will contain a short bio sentence or two at the end of their post, so you'll have an opportunity to learn a little bit more about them as well. I am sure you'll agree with me that what they have to say is timely and important -- and perhaps even more interesting than what we have to say ourselves!

Posted by Aaron Tang at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If anyone out there in Congress is paying attention, I hope they recognize that MySpace can be used as a forum for some very positive discussion among young people too - it's not all grim news and child predators. Here's an example of how, in a message sent to me by a student from Akron, OH regarding Our Education's efforts and the kinds of obstacles he anticipates we will encounter:

Hi there. I'm a student in Akron OH. I go to a school called North High School and my education is something I truely value. In the past two years, my school put through a number of reforms to improve our status. In just two years our school went from a ranking of "achedemic watch" to "effective". Our graduation test scores make up the largest majority of our "performance index score" followed by attendence. So I have confidence that my school will reach a ranking of "exellent". I'm assuming that you're familar with these ranks.

The fact about poor education around our country is frustrating, but i'm afraid that there may not be hope. It's just the way that our economic system works in our country. You see whether it's evident or not, every decision that anyone makes in this country is an economic decision. As far as public schools are concerned, it's hard to determine what will happen to them in the future. I'm not sure if it's like this is other parts of the country outside of Ohio, but here we fund public schools with tax levys tried in the cities. Therefore each city funds their own school without [much] help from the state (sic). With stuborn people and simply people who can't offord the taxes, public schools could possibly turn to private school in the next two decades. It's a scary thought but it could happen. If some sacrafises were made, we could be able to live in a socialist economy like france or germany and have things payed for; businesses regulated. I've always thought like a republican except when it comes to this. But the fact is that social reforms will never be sucessful in this country because of the stubborn american business man. Also the average american citized is basically too proud to make the sacrifices necessary to live like france, canada, or germany. I'm sorry about the long message, but it would be cool to hear what you think about it.
Later : )
~David E

Posted by Aaron Tang at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have you checked your Facebook profile today? I hope you poked everyone you needed to because Congress wants this to be your last visit.

Legislation introduced this week will ban social networking, even sites used for educational and professional opportunities. HR5319 will censor the communication of our generation and tell us who we can talk to, when and how. Tell Congress that social networking is a movement that we built, a movement that we are going to fight for.

Visit www.mobilize.org/SOS, take action, tell your friends and get mad.

Special thanks to our friends at Mobilize.org for this announcement!

Posted by Aaron Tang at 01:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So here's something that Ethan and I share in common beyond our job, our love of sports, our educational background, and an infatuation with trendy TV shows:

We both interned at the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence during a college summer.
For those of you who may not be familiar with the organization, the American Board is working to create a program through which mid career professionals and recent college grads can get certified to teach in public schools without having go back to a school of education for one or two years worth of classes. The theory is a good and logical one, and it's typified by this example: if Colin Powell wanted to teach High School Civics, or if renowned physicist Dr. Robert Birgeneau wanted to teach AP Physics in a US public school classroom today, they wouldn't be allowed to. Thanks to the American Board...

If General Powell and Dr. Birgeneau were able to pass a rigorous content exam and professional teaching knowledge exam, they'd be granted entry into the classroom in a handful of states that have adopted the Board's certification process.

Ethan and I were actually two of the first interns hired by ABCTE when it was created after NCLB's passage in 2001, and it's been wonderful to watch the organization grow. They released a study today--albeit a small one--that begins to show how the board's certification exams are correlated with teachers who produce higher learning gains than those teachers who are not able to pass the board's tests. They've also launched a five year comprehensive evaluation study to determine the true impact of their teachers on student learning - and it will be very interesting to see the results over time. Stay tuned to this story - it could mean a lot more people have the ability to enter the teaching profession. The upshot of this could be promising for youth: when employers (in this case, principals) see an increase in qualified applicants for a job, the quality of the employees tends to rise as well.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Keeping in line with the notion of court battles over education, South Carolina is grappling with a lawsuite over whether the state's schools are "minimally adequate." Lawyers and advocates just got a powerful new ally in this fight: students themselves are jumping into the fray to show just how much improvement is needed in their schools, with a travelling photo exhibit (in-line with the theory of change affirmed by our friends over at Critical Exposure)

First of all, let me just say this. I'll give a dollar to anyone who can explain to me why there's even a debate over whether we ought to provide all children with "minimally adequate" education, and a five dollar bill to anyone who can convince me that the schools in South Carolina are not adequate (if you want to be convinced of this, check out the video released by Bud Ferillo and his group called, the "Corridor of Shame"). But in my mind here's the tough million dollar question that people seem to be much less anxious to address:

Why is "minimally adequate" the rallying cry behind which we're gathering? To be sure, previous state supreme court cases have shown that arguments based on "adequacy" are easier to win than any other kind, but isn't there something to be said about fighting for values we really believe in and that can get people up in arms -- like the fact that all children ought to have access to high quality public education? This was a major topic of conversation at the Rodriguez Symposium two weeks ago, and I think an Atlanta HS student at a Close Up talk Ethan and I had yesterday said it best: if the only downside to fighting for high quality public education as a right is that it will be hard, then we should suck it up and fight the hard fight because it's the right fight. Besides, if we settle for the easy legal fixes aren't we guilty of doing the same thing that we blame lawmakers for all the time (doing the politically expedient thing instead of the difficult but right thing for children)?

Now, don't get me wrong, the lawyers trying the case and the advocates fighting for SC children are doing a tremendous thing, and any advances for students in the state will be welcome ones - and long overdue ones. But even if we win "minimally adequate" schools for all children, do we think that the achievement gap will be bridged, or that all children will be prepared for success in this global economy? Would we really be proud of ourselves as a nation if we somehow met even just a minimally adequate standard in our schools? Perhaps the answer is that we want to move forward in baby steps... and I'm ok with that so long as we keep in mind the end state we seek - a day when all young people have high quality educational opportunity.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As I first blogged about a couple weeks ago, last Thursday and Friday marked a *potentially* important occasion for the notion of quality education as a right of all children in America. We were honored to be invited to the "Rethinking Rodriguez" symposium hosted by Boalt Hall law school in Berkeley, CA, where a host of leaders and legends in education reform and school finance lawsuits gathered to discuss the possibilities of ensuring education as a right through a variety of legal and legislative strategies at the state and federal levels.

There were, of course, no easy solutions or epiphanies when it came down to decide next steps. But the good news was this: the sense of urgency among the lawyers present at the conference was matched by a realization that their litigation will have to work in tandem with social movement building and the voices of students, parents, and ordinary citizens if change is truly to occur. In other words, I got the sense that there is an increasing recognition from the "experts" that teamwork with "non-experts" like students themselves, their parents & others is necessary to create pressure on politicians to pay attention to kids and schools. Lawsuits will inevitably be a part of the fight to ensure access to quality educational opportunity across this great country, but they'll be much more palatable when the public is convinced that the goals of the lawsuit are worthwhile -- something that I suspect students can persuade people to believe.

I'll continue to provide some updates on how the community of legal minds is approaching these educational justice issues, and at the same time communicate what you, as students, want them to know. With that in mind, here are a couple of choice comments that recent petition signers have been making:

Aaron Salituro, a high school student in Connecticut: "Education, public or privately funded, is perhaps the most important investment any group of people can make. High quality education is not only practical because it guarantees an effective future workforce, but is also moral and compassionate as it enriches every aspect of one's life, yound or old, teaching values, ideas, and skills that can better a people and the world as a whole."

Kristen Crawford, now a college student in Ohio: "My high school did not prepare me for college. I went to a public, rural elementary school and high school, and I was not given the best education I could get. I was too poor to go to a private school, and I believe that someone with the talent should not be held back by a substandard school."

Philip Howe, a college student in Oregon: "Thomas Jefferson agreed that the foundation for a strong, stable, and successful democracy was an educated population. I would like to see this idea extended to the US Constitution. Only education will keep this country strong through the 21st century."

Posted by Aaron Tang at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)