Lori Holford's List: Student voice

• justice has reached the top of the education agenda in many Western  industrialized societies.

• Dana Mitra joined the Department of Education Policy Studies in January 2003
• Her research interests include
• school reform, student voice, school-community collaboration, qualitative methods, urban education, youth development, and social pol
• • Mitra, D. L. (forthcoming).  Collaborating with students: Building youth-adult partnerships in schools. American Journal of Education.  
  • Mitra, D. L. and Gross, S. J.  (forthcoming). Increasing student voice in high school reform: Building  partnerships, improving outcomes. Educational  Management, Administration, and Leadership. 
  • Mitra, D. L. (forthcoming).  Strengthening student voice initiatives in high schools: An examination of the  supports needed for school-based youth-adult partnerships. Youth and Society.  
  • Mitra, D. L. (forthcoming). Student  voice and student roles in education policy and policy reform. AERA Handbook on Education Policy Research. 
  • Mitra, D. L. (forthcoming). Making  it 'real': The role of student voice in reforming classroom practice. Educational Leadership.

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• The Question of the Student
  In Educational Reform

   

   

   

  David P. Ericson
  University of Hawaii at Manoa

   

   

   

  Frederick S. Ellett, Jr.
  University of Western Ontario
• They have focused on teachers, the curriculum, school structure and quality,  content and performance standards, teacher education, and the like. Yet almost  no attention has been paid to the would-be beneficiaries of implemented and  proposed educational reforms: students
• we shall raise the question of whether students have any duty or responsibility  for acting as an ideal student would
• we shall also show that students may be both irresponsible and rational  in failing to act as ideal students
• distributive behavior strongly favors the development of the kinds of  students—students in name only—who contrast strongly with a noted view of "the  ideal student."
• failure to take into account the various rational (and non-rational) interests  of students will most likely undermine the reformers' intent.
• Better teacher preparation, better conditions of employment, better professional  development, and better procedures for identifying marginal teachers are clearly  in order (especially as promoted by educators themselves).
• the reform movement's preoccupation with the teaching profession, as a whole,  ignores a salient feature of education: education is far more than a linear  technological process in which the teacher transforms "raw material" (the  student) into a finished "product" (an educated person).
• not the simple causal relationship
• Although central to the reform movement's demand forever increasing educator  accountability, the inference from lack of teaching success to poor or derelict  teaching is clearly fallacious. It simply ignores the causal role of  students in bringing about their own learning.
• the best teaching in the world will produce no results if students fail to be  concerned with their own learning
• interactive causal process in which either poor teaching or poor  "studenting" is generally sufficient for a lack of student success
• To entertain blaming the young for our educational situation may sound a bit  like entertaining a proposal to torture the innocent.
• to attend a legally sanctioned place of education (including "home schools")  until a certain age and (2) to be non-disruptive.
• Instead, we need to think about educational reform in terms of the institutions  whose role it is to sustain the virtues inherent in the practice of education.  Again, if we look at the educational system today, we witness an institution  that undermines, rather than sustains, the pursuit of educational excellence.
• The normative principle that governs the link between the educational system and  the social and economic system simply instantiates the norm that the road to  riches is through high grades, rather than emphasizing the intrinsic and  extrinsic value of educational benefits.
• What is it about the educational system that leads to the development of status  and wealth seekers and indifferent/hostile students?" In other words,  transforming the educational system may be the only way to transform  individuals
• we must weaken (if not abandon) the normative principle that  differentially rewards educational attainment (grades, degrees, and diplomas,  etc.).

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• A growing body of literature emphasizes the value of extending the notion of  distributed leadership (Elmore, 2000; Lashway, 2003) to include students in the  process.
• Such research has demonstrated that youth-adult partnerships can create a  synergy that transcends what youth or adults alone can do
• Research indicates that young people tend to broach subjects that adults are  reluctant to discuss, such as equity issues that tend to get swept under the rug  by administrators and other adults in the school who would rather avoid  controversy
• Giving students a voice in such reform conversations reminds teachers and  administrators that students possess unique knowledge and perspectives about  their schools that adults cannot fully replicate without this partnership  (Kushman, 1997; Levin, 2000; Mitra, 2001; Rudduck, Day, & Wallace, 1997;  Thorkildsen, 1994).
  
• great benefits for youth. These gains include an increase in agency, confidence,  attachment to social institutions, and to foster a range of competencies  (Kirshner, O’Donoghue, & McLaughlin, 2003; Mitra, 2004).
• modern context, the term “student voice” offers a less threatening notion of  youth engagement than “student empowerment
• The politics of the time often require a justification of student voice as a way  to increase student outcomes, and particularly test scores
• dovetails with a growing field of research on the importance of “youth-adult  partnerships” in the youth development field (Camino, 2000; Zeldin, 2004).
• A focus on mutual teaching and learning develops in youth-adult partnerships as  all parties involved assume a leadership role in some aspects of their shared  effort (Camino, 2000)
• opportunity to actively participate in school decisions that will shape their  lives, the lives of their families, and the lives of their peers (Fielding,  2001; Goodwillie, 1993; Levin, 2000).
  
  
• a socially just school not only trains students in a narrow academic sense but  it also prepares young people to lead democratic and morally just lives.
• Some of the groups spoke consciously of the intention to address issues of  intolerance and equity.
• common themes of attention to issues of access, voice, equity, and intolerance.
• levels—the systemic level focuses on issues of intolerance and injustice, the  organizational level focuses on advocating for specific school changes, and the  individual level focuses on fostering youth leadership and peer helping.
• this study suggest that the stronger the focus on fostering youth leadership,  the more the work of the group moves toward social justice questions
• Student voice initiatives therefore could serve an important role in  facilitating this progression of thinking about social justice issues in school  settings
• This study therefore has important implications for research on distributed  leadership (Elmore, 2000; Lashway, 2003) since it points to the specific value  of students’ contributions to a focus on these matters.

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