Student Voices is an initiative of Education|Evolving, a joint venture between Hamline University and the Center for Policy Studies. Education|Evolving is a Minnesota-based project committed to helping K-12 evolve and meet the challenges, demands, and opportunities of the 21st Century.

Students rarely have a place at the table during K-12 decision-makers’ discussions about education policy and school design. Across the nation, however, it has become increasingly popular among research organizations and various media outlets to ask students for their input. E|E’s Student Voices initiative goes one step further by integrating what students report—their opinions and their factual reporting on what happens in school, sometimes in comparison with what they can accomplish—with adult-level discussions that influence decision-making around school and education-policy design. E|E communicates what we learn to education-policy and school designers as well as those who influence them, such as think tanks, journalists, parents, teachers, and citizen groups.

Education|Evolving’s Student Voices initiative prioritizes the following efforts:

• Documenting student voices on topics in education policy. We focus a lot on:
  • what motivates different types of students to attend school and learn, and what does not—as well as the importance of motivation in determining whether and how much students actually learn.
  • what students can do, and want to do, in school in comparison to what they are actually doing.
  • students’ specific ideas about what adults can do to improve ‘school’ and what qualifications and qualities adults need if they aim to help improve student learning.
  • if, how, and what students are learning in unconventional schools or via unconventional schooling.
  E|E thinks about what students report to us in the context of problems facing K-12 education and suggests how students’ voices might influence current approaches to addressing those problems. Our reports, our Web site, meetings, student testimony, and other products are meant to help people think about K-12 problems and solutions in new ways.
  
  E|E associates write some reports based on our own research. Sometimes we draw on other researchers’ work to document student voices. E|E also publishes research conducted by students. Students at the Avalon School in Saint Paul, for example, worked with E|E to conduct their own research on ‘What makes a school worth attending?’. The student-researchers presented their findings to policy makers at a public forum sponsored by the Twin Cities Citizens League. The students later presented their findings at a state conference of school superintendents held in Southern California. Finally, their work was featured in the American School Board Journal. Other student contributors have testified before the state legislature in Minnesota, written articles for policy journals, participated in national meetings of policy makers, and been engaged in specific policy discussions as commentators.
• Ongoing development of an online clearinghouse for works documenting student voices (commentaries, media reports, student-prepared reports, and scientific research) that are available on the Web. Documents are organized by topics in education policy so legislators, journalists, researchers, and others who desire to learn quickly what some student citizens are communicating regarding a particular topic can easily locate information.
• Producing an online collection of videos documenting unconventional learning and schooling from the perspective of students and teachers.
• Encouraging adults who influence education policy to include students—more than superficially—in their own decision-making and policy-influencing efforts, whether students testify or participate as members.