Students have the power to stop the destructive forces that are ruining their education and treating them as data points, not humans who want to learn. They are holding a conference in Los Angeles, where they will discuss strategies to resist school closings, high-stakes testing, data mining, and other current efforts to turn their educational opportunity into an opportunity for entrepreneurs to use them. They can learn from the creative tactics of the Providence Student Union, which has utilized politicl theater to gain public support.
Go, students, go! You own the future. Don’t let the profiteers, bureaucrats, technocrats, and futurists steal it.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Hannah Nguyen
University of Southern California
Phone: (408) 644-9717
Email address: hbnguyen@usc.edu
USC Hosts EmpowerED 2014 Conference to Highlight Student Voice and Organizing in Education
Students everywhere are tired of feeling powerless
when it comes to decisions about their education.
That’s why they’re fighting back.
LOS ANGELES, MARCH 23 — On Saturday, March 29, at the University of Southern California, over 130 youth from all over Los Angeles will participate in EmpowerED: Los Angeles Student Power 2014. EmpowerED is a student-led education conference that will engage the local student community in discussing and strategizing what it will take to transform our education system to serve all students –and incorporate student voices.
EmpowerED 2014 is hosted by Students United for Public Education’s LA Chapter as a part USC EdMonth. This will be SUPE-LA’s first major event and the first EdMonth event to include local students in a discussion about educational policy issues.
EmpowerED will provide an opportunity for students in LA to learn about the student organizing that is expanding throughout the country, raise their voices on important educational issues, develop leadership and organizing skills, and collaborate with their peers on how to build a movement for student power. Israel Muñoz, co-founder of the Chicago Students Union who has spoken about his experiences on NBC and TED, will deliver the keynote address.
“Students spend most of their day in school, but almost never have a voice when it comes to decisions about their education. My fellow student organizers and I are tired of feeling powerless and have organized student unions to make sure our voices are heard,” says Muñoz. “We are very excited to share our stories with LA students, as well as hear their experiences and work with them to build a stronger local and national student movement. I am honored to be a part of a groundbreaking event that fosters peer-to-peer student empowerment and youth voice.”
Israel Muñoz marches with the Chicago Students Union
to protest mass school closings in his community.
The conference will bring together leading high school student activists from across the country who have organized and led student unions in response to the lack of student voice in top-down policies of the current education reform movement, such as high stakes testing, budget cuts, and mass school closings. In Los Angeles, these policies have further destabilized already under-resourced communities through cutbacks on the arts and humanities, mass teacher layoffs, and the reconstitution of major high schools like Crenshaw and Dorsey.
These experiences run nationwide. As such, EmpowerED will host a discussion panel with Providence Student Union’s Cauldierre McKay, Portland Student Union’s Sekai Edwards, Newark Students Union’s Kristin Towkaniuk, LA’s Coalition for Educational Justice organizer Taylor Broom, Alliance for Educational Justice’s Tre Murphy, and Chicago Students Union’s Israel Munoz.
A large part of the event will consist of hands-on, interactive workshops and open forums. There will be workshops led by all speakers and panelists on various topics such as student unionism, creative direct actions, public speaking, social media, and LA-specific movements for educational justice and student voice. Community groups like K-12 News Network and the California Student Union will also lead workshops on student voice in the budget and student organizing at the college level.
At the end of the day, students will have the unique opportunity to generate artwork that portrays their vision for student voice in education. This artwork will then be displayed in an exhibit called Collective Voice: The Wisdom of Young People on Education, at a 2015 national educational conference in Washington DC.
There will be a Livestream of the event for those who cannot make it to LA to attend. For more information about the EmpowerED 2014 conference and to access the Livestream video on the day of the event, go to empowerED2014.com.
View our promo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIFz2qCHYcI
Follow Us on Twitter: @empowerED_2014
MEDIA INTERVIEWS
Local media is invited to attend the conference on Saturday, March 29, 2014 to:
Interview EmpowerED attendees and speakers during lunch (12:00 – 12:30 PM)
Capture footage of the featured student organizing panel (12:30 – 1:30 PM)
About Students United for Public Education
Students United for Public Education (SUPE) evolved out of the work of college students involved in defending public education from its attackers. In particular, SUPE was founded to fill a void in the movement for public education — before SUPE, there was no national student organization devoted solely to this cause. Under the guise of “closing the achievement gap” and “school choice,” for-profit corporations and their political representatives have sought to privatize and sell off public education. SUPE understands that a profit motive cannot guarantee a good education. Instead, only a robust and well-supported public education system — along with the courage and will to directly confront problems of racial and economic inequality — can provide a quality education for all.
SUPE is a community based organization because we know that public schools are the heart of every community. In other words, SUPE understands that in order for our goals to be reached, we must fight with K-12 students, parents, teachers, and community members and elevate their essential voices. We aim to work with communities to find out what their needs are, and have them lead the way in the struggle as we work as equals to organize the change they believe is best. Find out more about Students United for Public Education at: studentsunitedforpubliced.org
About USC EdMonth
EdMonth at USC is the first national student-led movement and discussion about the state of education in our country. Downtown Los Angeles and the USC campus will serve as the backdrop for educators, parents, policy makers, business leaders, elected officials, engaged citizens and students to engage in a national, collegiate student-driven discussion on the issue of improving education in our country. USC EdMonth is organized by the USC Academic Culture Assembly and USC Program Board. Find out more at: edmonth.usc.edu
© Copyright 2014 University of Southern California. All rights reserved.
Hannah Nguyen
(408) 644-9717
hbnguyen@usc.edu
University of Southern California | B.A. Sociology
Students United for Public Education | Co-National Organizer
USC EdMonth | Executive Board Member
EmpowerED 2014 | Executive Director
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m so proud of Hannah and her commitment.
I will definitely spread the word.
There is a certain universality of a kid experience of being a kid, but there is a huge gap between the types of education kids get depending on WHO is looking out for them.
Every year I take my students in my working class district in LA to a super rich school in a neighboring district a mere 10 miles away. They might as well have gone to Jupiter when they see what THOSE other kids get. Small classes. A million electives and interesting classes. Field trips galore. Neighborhoods with no billboards. Stores that sell healthy food. No bail bonds places nor liquor stores on every corner. These kids at this other school society gives every possible opportunity to succeed.
They see clearly that the education powers-that-be does not value them.
They are the ones with the broken-down classrooms and see their maintenance money spent iPads for the purpose to prepare for and take their tests. That is what our district thinks of them.
My district is not interested in promoting true critical thinking skills that would make them say, “Hey! It is people in faraway hotel rooms with every amenity offered to them that are shaping my life.”
These people have their kids sent to vastly different schools to receive a vastly different education.
These people look at my kids and say you need testing to show you are educated.
These people look at my kid and tell them that their separate education is EQUAL to the one they give their kids.
These people say that their school and teachers will change the conditions of inequality and injustice that they, their parents and communities fight against all the time.
These people tell my students that THEY ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE for any of the societal miseries that inflict them and that they actually are THEIR saviors.
These people tell them that they know way more than their teachers what they need.
These people tell the students that their teachers who work with them daily and know their needs and concerns are really just conduits to implement THEIR designs.
Most kids would love to just enjoy their time as kids and do (often blindly) put an enormous amount of trust in the society around them to look after their interests.
But when my kids go to this alternative universe California school, high on the hill overlooking the beautiful Pacific, and then return to their community of toxic oil refineries and limited opportunities, well, something changes.
Some get mad because they see first hand what the accident of birth gets you in this life.
Fortunately, some channel that frustration and anger by getting political.
They say that these circumstances are not accidental. They are not the decision of God meting out who is lucky and favored. In reality, their circumstances are attributable to policy decisions by people who have NEVER visited my school’s neighborhood except for some PR campaign. Their lives are millions miles away–on Jupiter.
We have to believe that once our students know how people who have NEVER been in their situation nor have dealt with the societal issues that are part of many of their daily lives are TELLING THEM what they need, they will insist on change.
They need to shame those perpetrators of education reform who use their stories for their own advantage and profit.
They need to become active and demand the education they deserve. Organize. Speak Up. Act Up. All social revolutionaries learn what is required. Like the Chicano Movement of the ’70s, students learn that education is political. Those who work against your interests know that all-too-well but want to keep that information from you.
Pay no attention to that student over there with a megaphone demanding accountability from the billionaires who dictate society’s rules and, ultimately, the role of my students in their hierarchy. Here’s your next Pearson test.
Your District leaders tell you you need iPads over everything else. What a joke. It is all the other social justice leanings, critical thinking, exposure to the greater world and no more drowning in endless BS testing that my students need.
Good luck Empower Ed. You have so many educators and parents and your community on your side.
But only you students can do this part.
That superb!
Schools in low SES areas should crash the party at schools where the Oligarchs send their kids. We can turn this into a classroom lesson on persuasive writing. My kids love this kind of stuff to argue and write about. Wow, think of what this could generate.
Can you image how receptive those schools would be to have these visitations?
I’m curious why privatization enthusiasts always leave a certain percentage of public schools in their projections.
It’s “10%” or “25%” or “30%”
Why is that? Is the idea to keep a percentage of public schools to act as a “safety net” for certain students? Like Medicaid is to the private health insurance companies on the state exchanges?
Has anyone ever asked them?
Chiara, the remaining public schools might be in districts so affluent that the privatizers have no market, or they might be schools that take the kids dumped or excluded by the private sector schools.
Ironically, I was perusing th eparetn letters from my career, and I found one where the parent told me how her 7 year old son hated school when the year began, and now he does not wish the school year to end. She credits me for this change.
Yes, students and parents must do what our legislators cannot do… demand accountability from THE PEOPLE WHO ADMINISTER THE SCHOOL.
Hold them to SUPPORTING the teacher-practitioner, as outlined in the “PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING” four of which were for ADMINISTRATORS. This was the authentic, Pew funded, Harvard theory that became the NEW STANDARDS research:
1- a safe, quiet environment.
2- materials and technology that support the practice of the teacher.
3- organization that supports education, (and this does not include mandate bombs that demand the practitioners participation)
4- hiring and RETAINING professionals who have the education in the content area, and a knowledge of methodology and the psychology of learning.
I never hear a word about the multi million dollar genuine standards.
Maybe students and parents need someone to give them the ammunition to demand GENUINE REFORM!
i was the cohort in NYC for the real standards, and the silence is DEAFENING.
If I had not been part of the workshops run by the LRDC at the University of Pittsburgh, the tools people for Lauren Resnick’s (Harvard) theory which became the standards. I would think they never existed.
Four of the principles were for teachers. I met them all, and was awarded the NYS English Councils’ Educator of Excellence award, when I was selected by the LRDC, as one of six (out of 20,000 teachers observed in the research) who met every standard in a unique way.
Within a few months of that award, I was sent to a rubber room and charged with incompetence.