History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Give adolescents a place at the reform table
- 08-15-2011
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Commentary by Janet Eckerson/Education Week
Janet Eckerson is a doctoral student in education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and teaches Spanish at Crete High School in Crete, Nebraska.
School improvement is on the tip of everyone’s tongue in K-12 education; that is, everyone’s except students’. We do not talk with students about school improvement; we do not solicit their input; we do not involve them in our efforts. Why not? In my view, secondary school students are quite capable of contributing widely to school improvement activities, and their participation is both desirable and uniquely useful. First, I must address the idea that adolescents, by virtue of their not-quite-adult status, are somehow incapable of understanding or participating constructively in conceptualizing school improvement. While they may not be adults legally or biologically, adolescents are involved in a wide variety of activities of adult seriousness: (more...)
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