A Call for Comments
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'.