History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
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Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
WHO ASKED US: What's the matter with CA schools? L.A. students poll their peers
- 09-07-2010
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By Rupa Dev/New American Media
As California policy makers and researchers try to solve the critical problems plaguing the state’s public education system, a UCLA program is training a new generation of researchers who bring a unique and powerful perspective to the issue: inner-city students from some of Los Angeles’s lowest-performing, most resource–stretched schools. Just in time for the start of the school year, 28 students gathered in L.A. City Hall to present the findings of a statewide survey of 650 high school peers that they conducted this past summer, as part of the 2010-11 Council of Youth Research. Their goal was to find out whether the state is delivering on its promises, part of a settlement of a 10-year-old lawsuit, to provide a quality education for low-income students of color. To no one’s surprise, the answer is no. But the Youth Council survey provides an unusual, on-the-ground insight into the types of problems that loom largest for low-income students and the kinds of changes they hope to see. It may also inspire young people from disadvantaged communities to pursue careers in research, where their perspectives could help shape future education policy. (more…)
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