A group of twelve young leaders met yesterday in Atlanta, GA to discuss the possibilities of making high quality education a right guaranteed to all American children in the US Constitution.  The students and young adults represented organizations such as Hope Street Youth (Wichita, KS); Right to Learn CA (San Francisco, CA); Urban Underground (Milwaukee, WI); Young Democrats of America (Atlanta, GA); the Algebra Project (Jackson, MS); Quality Education as a Civil Right (Atlanta, GA), Mobilize.org, and others.

The meeting was held in cooperation with the Southern Education Foundation, a leading education advocacy organization representing underprivileged youth in the Deep South.  More news on their forthcoming report on education as a federal right will come in the fall.

After much deliberation and careful reading, the 2007 Youth Action Board has selected three high school student leaders and champions of the cause of quality education as an American right to join the 2008 Youth Action Board.  Congratulations to the three new members:

- Niharika Goparaju, a Junior at Troy HS in Troy, Michigan
- Mercedes Guillot, a Junior at G Braddock Holmes Senior HS in Miami, Florida
- Andrew Speen, a Junior at Andover HS in Andover, Massachusetts

Our Education will continue working on our first-of-its-kind national youth petition campaign to make quality education an American right in the coming year, and these three new board members will be a critical part of our leadership team.  Congratulations to them and thank you to all who applied for the board!

Our Education is looking for motivated and passionate high school and college students to apply for our 2008 Youth Action Board! The Youth Action Board is a group of ten to twenty students (mostly high school students and a few in college) who work with Our Education staff and one another to provide the overall leadership for our growing national student movement to improve educational opportunity in America. Board members provide this leadership by setting goals; creating innovative growth, fundraising, and advocacy strategies; and carrying out those strategies by working with and recruiting other students in their communities, states, and regions.  

So, if you have already led or are currently leading a successful Our Education petition drive in your school, if you hold a deep commitment to the idea that young people like us have the power to bring about critical changes in our nation’s schools, and if you want to be a part of something big and ground-breaking that truly has the potential to change our world, the Youth Advisory Board is for you!

To apply for the board, just download this application and complete it by December 14th, 2007!  Instructions for how to return it to us are contained in the application.  Email us with any questions!

A group of fifty leading high school students from across the country met with more than fifteen law-makers in Washington, DC last week.  Led by a team of eight Our Education volunteer staff, the high school students asked their Congressmen, Senators, and key staff tough questions about the future of national K-12 education policy, particularly with regard to No Child Left Behind set to be re-authorized in the next two years. 

The students pushed their officials to include students in the dialogue around re-authorization, and to consider the important concept of high quality education as a constitutional right for all children.  A group of eight students also met with Deputy Secretary of Education Ray Simon to request the creation of a permanent student advisory body at the department of education.

The lobbying day was run in partnership with Hugh O'Brien Youth Leadership, the nation's premiere youth leadership development organization.

The first Our Education National Youth Leadership Conference took place this past weekend in New Haven, CT, and was a resounding success!  10 students, each members of Our Education's Youth Action Board, took part in the conference to help shape the future of the national youth movement for quality public education.

In addition to taking on new leadership responsibilities, the ten students also worked together to create the strategic plan that will guide Our Education's growth in the next two years. Applications for students to join the Action Board will be released in the fall, so if you care about this cause and want to take on national-level leadership in the movement be sure and check back at www.oured.org every few weeks!

For Immediate Release
July 9, 2007
Contact: Aaron Tang, info(at)oured.org, 314 260 7938

Our Education Statement on
Strong American Schools and “Ed in 08”

Our Education, a national membership organization of over 16,000 high school and college students who believe that all American children should have access to high quality educational opportunities, announced its support for the Strong American Schools “Ed in 08” campaign today. 

In America, where two-thirds of children are unable to read at grade level proficiency, more than a million students drop out of school each year, and staggering educational inequality persists along socioeconomic, geographic, and racial lines, there is no issue more vital to securing our national well-being than education.  Yet in election after election, the schools that more than 50 million American youth attend each year receive little more than surface-level attention from the candidates.  We applaud the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Ely & Edythe Broad foundation for their leadership in recognizing that this must change in order to bring about dramatic improvement in our schools.

We eagerly look forward to working with Ed in 08 to mount sustained public pressure on all presidential candidates to put forth serious, sensible plans on how they intend to address the crises in our nation’s schools.  And we look forward to a healthy dialogue among the candidates that recognizes young people themselves as important stakeholders and resources in school reform. 

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Our Education (www.OurEd.org) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization led by high school and college age youth across the country with the mission of building a national youth movement to make education at long last an American priority.  With over a quarter-million dollars in support from corporate, family, and private foundations, and a rapidly growing membership of more than 15,000 youth, Our Education seeks to mobilize public demand and political will for the kinds of resources and policies that children and schools need to succeed in the 21st century.  This statement was ratified by Our Education's eight-member National Youth Advisory Board.  For more information, visit Our Education online at www.OurEd.org.

Congratulations to the following three students who were selected to join seven Youth Advisory Board members at Our Education's inaugural national youth leadership conference in New Haven, CT:

Kara Brower, High School Sophomore, Stephen Decatur HS in Berlin, MD
Jennifer Telschow, High School Sophomore, EE Waddell HS in Pineville, NC
Tiffany Tran, College Sophomore, Orange Coast College in Fountain Valley, CA

The conference will be held on the weekend of July 20-22, and a full report will be published here with the results!

Looking for a t-shirt, bumper sticker, tote bag, or other item to show your support for Our Education's national youth movment to improve education?  Look no further than to Our Education's online store where you can buy exciting, student-designed items to support the cause of quality education as an American right. Not only will these items help raise awareness whenever you wear them, but a portion of every sale goes to support youth organizing to improve our schools!

Also, if you are artistic and like to design things, click here to learn about how YOU can design a product for this store and even receive a portion of the proceeds!