As many of you know, one of the more commonly challenged aspects of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is its reliance on states to set their own standards for academic proficiency, which has led to a "race to the bottom" where states can actually game the system by lowering standards instead of raising student achievement. This has led to the emergence of a rather strange set of political bedfellows across both aisles of the political spectrum who believe that the best way to resolve the problem is to move to some system of national standards more akin to what other developed nations have.

The devil, of course, is in the details. Who would write the standards? Who would enforce them? And would the role of the federal government become too expansive? Written in part by Mike Petrilli, a member of Our Education's National Advisory Panel, this report released by the Fordham Foundation does a terrific job of breaking down the debate over these questions and others - and I strongly encourage you to check it out.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Do you wake up in the morning with a stiff neck and aching shoulders? Do you suffer from chronic back pain and muscle fatigue? Tingling arms? Or stooped posture ?

Well then maybe you need to “Lighten Up”. That’s right. National School Backpack Awareness Day is right around the corner and your friends at the American Occupational Therapy Organization want you to “Lighten Up: Pack it light, Wear it right”.

National School Backpack Awareness Day was created to raise awareness among parents, students, and teachers about backpack safety. It is recommended that a student’s backpack not weight more than 15% of his or her body weight. Yet the average student carries a backpack that weighs almost 25% of his/her body weight. In 2001, 7,000 emergency room visits occured as the result of book bags and backpacks!

So, with many students around the country already back in school and with almost everyone else set to return after Labor Day, there is no better time than now to learn how to load and carry your backpack properly. So check out the website and do your part to stamp out back pain.

Posted by Ethan at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you've been trying to contact us here at Our Education via email lately and have received a message saying that your emails cannot be sent to us, please let us know. We've been told that a couple people have gotten bouncebacks and so need to make sure our email server is working properly.

In the meanwhile, if you need to get in touch with us, feel free to call us at 314 260 7938 (aaron) or 203 404 5026 (ethan).

Posted by Aaron Tang at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Does anyone but me remember this movie? Where the unflappable Marty McFly and Doc head back in time a full century to the days of Annie Oakley and wild west gunslinging? For my money it's one of the more underrated third parts of a three-part series, though that may have more to do with other part III movies than anything else... have you seen the Godfather III? The Matrix Revolutions? Ernest Goes to School? {shudders}

Well if you think the idea of time travel is just some fantasy never-to-be-realized, try visiting St. Agatha, a small town in rural Maine... because students there get two weeks vacation in late September so that they can help out with the potato harvest!!! Don't believe me? Visit the district's website and look at the calendar of events in the top right hand corner. Sure enough, right under the "first day of school" on August 16 is listed, "Potato Harvest Break", Sept 20 - Oct 4.

Which, of course, begs the question: what are you going to wear to the potato harvest this year? Ethan's going with overalls, a straw hat, and a stylish cardigan. I'm wearing these with some jeans, a t-shirt.

In all seriousness, when I discovered this interesting event out while talking to Samantha Paradis, a busy and motivated student leader we're lucky to be working with to lead a petition drive in St. Agatha, it reinforced a very important lesson: it's going to take students from all backgrounds to make this movement strong. Too often the education policy circles in Washington, DC focus on issues and politics that affect some of America--often in cities and suburbs--but forget that millions of children go to school in rural towns across the country. Our nation will only go so far as every American child is educated... and so we hope that with the student voice in education reform comes a strong push for improved rural education as well.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Aaron and I often talk (...okay, lament) about the number of times that students get to offer their first-hand experiences with policy makers and education researchers who shape the laws that define their schools. So many people are used as proxies for students themselves--teachers, parents, administrators, researchers--that you would think students in this country were hard to come by or, at the very least, hard to find. Well every so often an organization gets a crazy idea: to listen to what students have to say about what's really going on in their schools.

That 'crazy' organization in this case is the Commission on No Child Left Behind, which is funded by the Aspen Institute. They have asked me to come and share with some members of the commission what the students we have been coming into contact with have been saying about the law. Now, before you go and point out that this, too, seems like an organization using a proxy instead of the real thing, I will offer two points (1) Aaron and I have gotten to spend the entire summer hearing the thoughts of hundreds of students on the state of their schools, their thoughts on NCLB, and their hopes for the future of our school system. I'd say that the commission getting to hear these thoughts is definitely a step in the right direction (2) For those of you high schoolers out there who would like to send a message directly to the commission, I would be glad to hand deliver it for you. So if you're interested, email me your thoughts on NCLB at ethan@oured.org and I promise to pass them along. So there you go. Consider it your education version of the 'red telephone'.

Posted by Ethan at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In what we hope will be a sign of more attention to come, a high school student named Alan Moore from Hawkinsville, GA had an article published in his local paper in which he discussed Our Education's "A Million Voices, One Right" national petition campaign. The paper doesn't have an online link to the article yet, but here's the snipped about OurEd:

"Many Georgia delegates attended the “Petitioning Your School for Change” workshop, led by Aaron Tang of Our Education, an organization based in Arlington, Virginia that is leading the call for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing American children the right to an education. A graduate of Yale University, Tang co-founded the organization with fellow Yale graduate Ethan Hutt. Their motivation was a core belief that children in the United States deserve a better education, as well as having the right to the same education guaranteed. Particularly surprising was the fact that the word “education” is not mentioned once in the United States Constitution. In San Antionio vs. Rodriguez, the US Supreme Court in 1973 ruled that education does not fall under the rights afforded to citizens under the Constitution. Expect to see many of the delegates who attended this wonderful and informative workshop to be working tirelessly for better schools in our respective counties, state, and nation."

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ethan made a really wise observation yesterday, as we were talking about the different schools that we are working with on Our Education's national student petition campaign. I had just written two emails back-to-back, to two different students who are going to be leading petition drives in their schools this fall.

One of the students I wrote to attends Hodgdon High School, a small public school (only 240 students in the whole school) in a tiny town in rural Maine. The school is so small that there aren't really any extra-curricular clubs to speak of that might be natural candidates for leading the drive, but the student we're working with is going to work with her friends to lead the drive anyway. The other student that I wrote to attends Phillips Exeter Acadmey in New Hampshire, one of the nation's most renowned boarding schools. The distinctions between Hodgdon and Exeter could not be any greater--the schools are basically a whole world apart--but Ethan's remark put into perspective just how important it is that we're working in both these kinds of schools:

It takes all types. Hodgdon can't do it alone, and neither can Exeter. (Where "it" means bringing about the day when all American children receive high quality education). But together... with students at hundreds and even thousands of other schools in the country... that's how students can make a difference. Will you join us?

Posted by Aaron Tang at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So you know about Our Education's MySpace. But now you can show your love for the cause on Facebook as well! Just log into you facebook profile and then click here to see the group and join it.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'll admit it. I'm a softie for the "eduflick". You know the one - it's the same story every time: hard-working superstar teacher goes to low-performing, urban school and defies all the odds to get his students to excel. It's been called different things at different times - Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds, Lean on Me. TNT just came out with the latest iteration, "The Ron Clark Story" starring none other than Matthew Perry, aka Chandler Bing (aka that is my scone).

I'm watching it now and have to say that it's been an awesome movie. It makes me wish I was teaching, for starters, but it also makes me appreciate the efforts of the thousands of incredible educators out there who, like Mr. Clark, go to work every day and give their everything to inspire a love of learning in their students. So, as the school year kicks off anew, let me on behalf of Our Education give a shout out to the great teachers out there. Best wishes in the '06-'07 school year!

Posted by Aaron Tang at 09:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've been waiting for just the right moment to launch the global Our Education Facebook group, and with a website hosting tweak just finishing it's almost that time! If you are on facebook, stay tuned in the next few days for the official launch of the global group (I'll post the name, URL, and other info on this blog right away) - we're shooting for like three billion members in the first hour or two of its launch :)

Posted by Aaron Tang at 05:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I wonder sometimes how the ups and downs that we experience in the modern day over e-mail compare to the peaks and valleys that our forebears went through (WAY BACK!) when snail mail was still the preferred method of correspondence.

For instance, I was so happy to get an email in my inbox over the weekend from Andrew Speen, a high school student in Andover, MA. We first met Andrew in Washington DC some two weeks during one of our talks and we immediately connected over the need and potential for increased student voice in fighting for quality public education. But before we could even send him a note to follow up about the possibility of working with him as a student leader in our national student petition campaign, Andrew gets in touch with us first - to suggest the idea of a joint fundraiser and petition drive at a local Andover restaurant, where all customers can learn about the important cause, young people can sign the petition, a portion of the profits go to supporting Our Education's work, and the restaurant benefits from heightened visibility and support for a worthy cause.

What a brilliant idea--a quadruple dip of public awareness, youth involvement, fundraising, and community building--that neither Ethan nor I could have ever thought of... let alone execute. It all goes to show how innovation and the best that we as an organization can deliver will ultimately come from the very young people who lead this movement. And the same might be said about our nation as a whole -- if we but trust our youth to lead the way, we'll all be the better for it.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So as you may have noticed, new blog entries have been rare of late (thanks to Stacy for filling the void with her recent post about states and NCLB!). The main reason is that Ethan and I have been busy moving shop from the DC area to two new locations - one in New Haven, CT (Ethan) and a second in St. Louis, MO (me). We just finished our moving processes in the last couple of days and so will be back up and running at 100% now!

If you're wondering why we chose those two locations, you're probably not alone. Why, after all, would we choose to leave DC where the policy and big talk is taking place, to move to two relatively "unspectacular" (at least by comparison) cities? Well, the answer is a mix of personal and professional reasons. Personal having to do with a pair of Our Edu-girlfriends and professional because we've found that we need to out and about working with high school student leaders in their communities as much as possible - and these two new locations will give us much greater coverage. Plus, we maintain a solid base of Yale student volunteers that Ethan will be working with in New Haven.

So, what does this change about Our Education? Nothing, really. It makes it slightly more likely that we'll be able to visit your school or town, and every bit as likely that we'll be able to talk with you by phone and AIM at your best convenience. We're getting primed for a big fall for Our Education in terms of reaching out to young people across America... and know that together, we can make a difference.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)