Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Forget civics class: Students want to make a difference in real life

    The Oakland Youth Vote started as a youth-led ballot initiative to give 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote for school board representatives. Student activism helped get the initiative on the November 2020 ballot and the Oakland City Council promised to fund and implement the measure if it is approved. The ballot measure passed with 67% of voters supporting it. Voting for school board representatives will allow students to have a say in the policies and decisions that shape their education and ensure that the diverse student body is appropriately represented.

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  • Midwestern Youth of Color Are Using Art and Culture to Build Their Political Power

    The Midwest Culture Lab consists of three organizations working to increase voter turnout among young people, especially young people of color. The partners work with artists, musicians, and other creative people to create messaging and campaigns that are culturally relevant and engage young people in civic participation. One partner, the Ohio Student Association, had artists create an ad that used relatable messaging about a criminal justice reform ballot measure to appeal to young people to vote. The ad brought in over 150 volunteers and contributed to doubling Ohio’s youth voter turnout from 2014 to 2018.

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  • EdNext Podcast: Teaching the Declaration of Independence with a Video Game

    Nationally, civic courses lack rigor, partly because few states require coursework in civics. A new video game called “Portrait of a Tyrant,” based on the Declaration of Independence, could change that. “Let’s gamify a story,” said Danielle S. Allen, director of the Democratic Knowledge Project. In this episode, the creators of the video game share the challenges that exist for creating civics curriculum and the way this game can bridge that game between students and history.

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  • 'A New Generation of Poll Workers' Steps Up to Ensure Safe, Fair Elections Audio icon

    New groups are recruiting poll workers to help fill shortages made worse by Covid-19. Poll Hero Project is an initiative created and led by young people that has recruited over 28,000 high school and college-age poll workers using social media. Power the Polls is a coalition of well-known brands that used social media outreach, digital marketing, and celebrity promotions to sign up over 530,000 volunteers. Both groups help navigate what can be a complicated process to sign up to work the polls.

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  • How Did These Students Get The City To Change The Name Of Douglass Park? They Built Collective Power And Didn't Back Down

    Chicago students organized and, for the first time, convinced the city to rename a park in honor of Frederick and Anna Murray Douglass. The former Douglas Park was named after a Civil War era Illinois senator who advocated to expand slavery, and whose wife owned slaves. Not daunted by the city’s bureaucracy, the students canvassed in their community and gathered over 10,000 signatures for a petition to change the park’s name. The campaign, which began in 2017, was much harder and longer than the students anticipated, but by forming a coalition and continuing to speak out they persevered.

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  • How young poll workers may save Americans from Election Day chaos

    Organizations ran campaigns to recruit young people to work as poll workers, addressing shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of high school and college students, as well as recent graduates, signed up to fill the gaps. Social media provided an effective recruitment tool, and the diverse coalition called Power to the Polls, that includes MTV, Uber, Starbucks, and others, got 400,000 people to sign up. Some coalition partners offer paid time off to their employees for working at polls and states, such as Georgia, offer poll worker compensation, which was a draw for young people.

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  • Schools rarely teach climate change outside of science class. Teachers are changing that.

    Climate Change lessons are lacking even in science classes. This article identifies a variety of methods that educators can take to incorporate climate change into the classroom. Examples include things like incorporating climate change into non-science classes, creating interdisciplinary courses, and keeping the issue non-partisan. "They just want to be told the truth. They want to acknowledge that they're angry," Metzger-Carter said. "So, I tell them the truth. I tell them that their voices are way more powerful than mine. Then, I step out of the way."

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  • Why We Should Lower the Voting Age to 16

    Research shows that voting at a young age leads to lifelong civic engagement and several cities and countries have lowered their voting ages. In the handful of democracies that allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote, they also show that they turnout in large numbers. Austria was the first EU country to allow 16-year-olds to vote and in 2014 their turnout was 64%, compared to 56% for voters 18-20. Takoma Park, Maryland allows 16-year-olds to vote, and in 2015 45% of them turned out compared to 21% overall. The national movement is slow, and not gaining a lot of traction, but changes can happen at the local level.

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  • Texas's High School Voter Registration Law Fails to Live Up to Ideals

    A Texas law requiring high school principals to register eligible student voters has failed because it is unequally carried out, not enforceable or tracked, and other obstacles to vote prevent students from casting ballots. While the law was an impressive attempt to increase the civic participation of young people, many high schools have not participated. A 2019 report shows that only 38% of schools with at least 20 seniors requested voter registration forms. A confounding obstacle is a 2013 voter ID law that requires voters to show one of seven forms of photo identification, but student IDs are not eligible

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  • Advocates, teachers aim to help growing number of young Texas voters wield their power

    Organizations and educators in Texas work to increase voter engagement among young people. Schools must provide voter registrations, but many don't, so some teachers register students and teach the importance of civic participation. Several groups also work to get high school and college-age voters to the polls. MOVE Texas and Texas Rising registered thousands of young voters on National Voter Registration Day in 2019. Utilizing technology, going to where young people are, and teaching media literacy increased civic engagement among young people in 2018, although the turnout was still relatively low at 25%.

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