For anyone who has not yet encountered Students for Education Reform (SFER) this dynamic group is a nonprofit devoted to injecting student voice into education policy. They currently have chapters on over 70 college campuses and continue to grow. By organizing college students, SFER has tapped into an invested and powerful force for change that has long been neglected in the education reform movement. College students, having recently completed the American K-12 education experience, may have the best on the ground information on how policies are shaping education. The rest of us debate the impact of No Child Left Behind on curriculum or the value of charter schools like KIPP, but these students have lived it. And now they’re here to tell us what needs to change.
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to help organize a training weekend for some SFER members from campuses across the country. I must say I am impressed. Anyone who is fretting about the quality of modern college students needs to spend some time with these young adults. This group was incredibly intelligent and thoughtful about education policy. For the training we assembled a group of experienced policy and campaign experts to share their knowledge and insights. But these SFER members didn’t come to simply absorb and accept what the experts had to say. They asked hard questions of themselves and the presenters, from challenging a study’s data collection methods to requesting information on how to ensure their teacher preparation program is preparing them well. And over the course of an intense two-day training, they were more focused and attentive than most groups of professional adults I’ve encountered (though I’m seriously impressed by their ability to continually tweet without anyone noticing their phones were out).