Education Week - June 12, 2019 - 13

ABOUT THE CITIZEN Z PROJECT

UNDERREPRESENTED?
When students serve on state and local boards of education, they usually fill an advisory role rather
than holding voting privileges. The maps below show which states allow students to serve. States
in gray either don't permit students to serve or information was unavailable.

LOCAL SCHOOL BOARDS

U.S. public education is rooted in the
belief by early American leaders that the
most important knowledge to impart to
young people is what it means to be a
citizen. If America is experiencing a civic
crisis now, as many say it is, schools
may well be failing at that job.
To understand the role of education
in preparing the next generation
of citizens, Education Week began a
series of articles, surveys, and projects
in early 2018. This article is the latest
installment in the project.
See other stories in the series: www.edweek.org/go/
CitizenZ

D.C.

Nonvoting student member
Voting student member

Note: In California and the District of Columbia, student member's vote is recorded but not counted.
In Arizona, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont, students may vote only if elected at age 18+.

STATE SCHOOL BOARDS

D.C.

Nonvoting student member
Voting student member

Note: In the District of Columbia, student member's vote is recorded but not counted.
SOURCES: National Association of State Boards of Education; National School Boards Association; SoundOut; Education Week

and leadership for the Denver district, including
its marquee program, the Student Board of Education. In it, students from each high school develop and sometimes enact proposals to improve
school life. But Lopez isn't convinced that creating a voting student board position in the district
would necessarily improve civic learning much on
its own. It could feel like tokenism to students if
badly implemented, she said.
"I go back and forth on this," she said. "I worry
it lets adults off the hook for thinking about what
it really means to have student voice at the table."
Denver's current youth-voice programs require
students to learn the ins and outs of effective civic
work-how to organize, advocate, and present ideas

effectively, and a voting student board position
would need to be coupled with similar education
for it to be truly effective, Lopez believes.
Still others argue that the idea of students on
boards is fundamentally flawed. One is Seth Andrew, who founded the first Democracy Prep charter school in 2005. (The civics education-focused
network has since expanded to 21 schools; a 2018
study showed that students enrolled in a Democracy Prep school were much more likely to register to vote and to vote than their peers.)
Too often, he said, adults confuse the ends of civics education with the means. Putting students-
or parents or teachers-on school boards as voting
members potentially undermines checks and bal-

ances in the system, akin to having a U.S. Supreme
Court member also serving in the legislature.
"It actually sets up a really complicated dynamic,"
Andrew said, pointing out the quandary that could
occur if a student board member ran afoul of the
district's discipline policies. "I don't think we have to
run schools like direct democracies or representative
democracies, but we do have to teach kids how to
function in the authentic, imperfect democracy that
awaits them when they graduate."
There is an argument to be made that students
serving on the board reap the most civic benefits
of the role, rather than the student body at large.
Gilleland served as Anne Arundel's 1994-95 student board representative. One lesson he's carried:
While democracy can be messy, slow-moving, and
sometimes dull, it's also consequential.
"Naturally every student, or adult, who comes on
the board has one or two or three issues they want
to impact and dedicate their time to enhancing.
And yet once you get there you go, 'Oh, wow,'" he
said. "Your time and energy are devoted to labor
negotiations, or something happens that is not
expected, like safety and security or bullying. ...
That sense of responsibility and accountability is
something that turns a 17-year-old into a 40-yearold almost immediately."

Tackling the Tough Issues
Although limited, the anecdotal evidence from
the Maryland districts suggests student board
members are willing to put issues on the table that
make many adults blanch.
Urrea's push on student rankings is one example.
And in January, Tadikonda introduced a resolution,
later adopted by the board, that has emerged as
the most divisive school issue of the year in Montgomery County: to hire a consultant to determine
whether some school boundaries could be redrawn
to improve diversity.
It was a direct response to all that constituency
work she's done, and students are leading the
charge for school integration at community forums.
The county is months if not years away from
analyzing results or changing any boundaries as
a result of the study. But the mere idea has galvanized vociferous opposition, and in the pages
of local media reports, yielded predictably coded
comments about whether more integrated schools
would be "academically rigorous" enough. That's an
educational experience, too, though not a particularly heartening one.
"It's kind of disappointing to see some of the issues that have come up at the community forums,"
Tadikonda said.
As for Urrea, the future of her idea in Anne
Arundel County hinges on a board vote later this
month, but the experience has already altered her
life trajectory. She'd planned to major in engineering when she matriculates to the University of
Maryland in the fall. But now, she said, she is planning to double major, in Chinese, and-in a perfect
reflection of her board service-public policy.
EDUCATION WEEK | June 12, 2019 | www.edweek.org | 13

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Education Week - June 12, 2019

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