Our Education is directed by Ethan Hutt and Aaron Tang, both class of 2005 Yale University graduates.  The two co-founded the organization in 2003 with a number of fellow students at Yale, and worked to develop local high school student participation in education policy discussions, launch a quarterly student publication Our Education, and run a statewide effort to create opportunities for student representation on Connecticut local school boards.  Our Education is now located in Washington DC, where Hutt and Tang work together as full-time staff, and a volunteer staff of students at Yale University continues to work to empower the voices of high school students throughout Connecticut.


Ethan Hutt – Co-Director
Ethan Hutt is a twenty-four year old graduate of public schools in Santa Monica, California.  During his junior year at Santa Monica High School, the district school board threatened to renege on a promise of funding for the construction of a new set of classrooms to alleviate the school’s overcrowding problem.  Ethan led a group of his fellow students and a number of parents to the school board and demanded that the money be used for its originally promised purpose.  When the board saw the large turnout of students and parents, and heard the passionate remarks delivered by Ethan, his classmates, and many parents, it decided to allocate the money in accordance with the group’s wishes.  Today, those classrooms stand as a testament to the power of collective action and the potential of young people when they demand change.

Ethan was named one of the “World’s Best Emerging Social Entrepreneurs” by Echoing Green, the nation’s premier social change seed funder.  In his senior year of college, Ethan wrote an award winning essay on the history of bilingual education in New Haven, Connecticut.  He holds a B.A. in history from Yale University, where he graduated cum laude in 2005.  Read Ethan’s latest entry in Our Education blog, or email him at Ethan(at)OurEd.org.


Aaron Tang – Co-Director
Aaron Tang is a twenty-three year old graduate of public schools in Painesville, Ohio.  He is a 2005 graduate of Yale University with a B.A. in political science.  During the summers of his sophomore and junior year of college, he taught at Aspire, a tuition free summer program for Cleveland inner-city middle school students, summers which he considers to be the most important and formative experiences of his life.

Aaron is a 2004 Truman Scholar, 2005 USA Today All-USA College Academic First Team honoree, and recipient of the 2005 Alpheus Henry Snow Prize given by Yale University Faculty to the graduating senior who “through the combination of intellectual achievement, character and personality... has done the most for Yale by inspiring in his or her classmates an admiration and love for the best traditions of high scholarship.”  Along with Ethan he was named one of the “World’s Best Emerging Social Entrepreneurs” by Echoing Green, and is a 2005 winner of the American Eagle Outfitters Live Your Life competition for his work on Our Education.  Read Aaron’s latest entry in Our Education blog, or email him at Aaron(at)OurEd.org.

Field Coordinators:
Roshan Adhasseril, Belleville HS in Belleville, NJ
Rena Burden, Eastern Kentucky University
Neil Mashruwala, Illinois Institute of Technology
Theresa Opara, Mandarin HS in Jacksonville, FL
Andrew Speen, Andover HS in Andover, MA
Tiffany Tran, Orange Coast College in CA