Rhode Island Alliance for College and Career Readiness Featured on Education First Blog
“We Are the Future”: A Conversation about Student Voice in Policymakingfeatures the Rhode Island Alliance for College and Career Readiness (RIACCR). A key part of the Alliance’s strategy is empowering students to be directly involved in policy design and advocacy. Through the statewide organization Young Voices, more than 10 Rhode Island public high school students have participated as full members of the Alliance since it launched in 2017, alongside leaders of organizations like the College Crusade of RI, NAACP-Providence, College Visions, and the Latino Policy Institute. 18 youth have engaged in additional ways, including attending the RIACCR convening this past fall. Emily Weiss of Education First spoke to Amelia Lopez, then a senior at Classical High School in Providence, and Paige Clausius-Parks, a Senior Policy Analyst at Rhode Island KIDS COUNT who coordinates this Alliance, to write this blog piece.
New Paper: Elevating Student Voice in Education
The Center for American Progress has released a new paper, Elevating Student Voice in Education. The paper recognizes that all of us — students, teachers, parents, administrators, policymakers — need to own our efforts and outcomes as “mine” or “ours” if we are to maximize our motivation.
In circulating the report, KnowledgeWorks noted that, "The most inspiring learning environments...prioritize a student’s ownership over their learning. Whether it’s personalized, competency-based, culturally responsive, civic-oriented or positions youth as the evaluators of our instructional efforts, student voice activities repeatedly demonstrate that learning, achievement and equity can be enhanced when we put students in the driver’s seat."
