Our Education is the voice of young people across the country who believe that all American children should have access to high quality education.  Created as a response to the sad reality that the most critical stakeholders in education—students themselves—do not have a voice in school reform efforts, Our Education’s mission is to improve K-12 education by engaging and empowering America’s youth in a national movement for better schools  (read a one page info sheet here). 

With the goal of creating a large base of youth across the nation who are passionate about improving our K-12 education system, and then activating that base to effect change on important local, statewide, and national education issues, Our Education will be launching three initiatives beginning in 2006:

1) Our Education’s National Youth Petition Campaign.  In order to raise youth awareness, involvement, and demand for better schools, Our Education is running a ground-breaking petition campaign to reach out to millions of American students.  The goal of the petition is for more than one million youth to stand up and make their voices heard by signing a petition in support of a constitutional amendment to guarantee all American children the right to a high quality K-12 education. 

• To sign the petition, click here
• To learn more about the importance of making high quality k-12 education an American right guaranteed in the US Constitution, read our FAQ’s.
  

2) The first annual Our Education Youth Leadership Conference. At the conclusion of the National Youth Petition Campaign, Our Education will host a national student conference at which a representative and diverse body of youth leaders from around the country will convene to discuss and pass a Students Bill of Rights: a national youth statement about what the right to a “high quality education” should mean.  The document will be a powerful declaration about youth values and priorities in education delivered to local, state, and federal policy makers. 

3) The Student Voice Project (SVP).  Because so many of the decisions affecting schools occur at the local and state level, Our Education will work to pilot our Student Voice Project in a handful of high schools across the country, with a focus in Connecticut.  The SVP is designed to create avenues for student representation to local school boards, train youth to be effective resources to their boards, and involve entire student bodies in conversations about student experiences and priorities.  

Questions?  Email us at info(at)oured.org.