Millions of Youth Are Newly Eligible Voters in 2022

Source: Photo by Mikhail Nilov: https://www.pexels.com

By Sam Piha

The 2022 election offers a number of opportunities to engage older youth. We can frame these efforts as “meaningful participation”, “civic engagement”, “youth leadership” or “community service”. There are a number of organizations and initiatives that have designed curriculums, program tools and other materials to assist afterschool providers in their efforts to engage youth in the 2022 election. Consider working with youth to organize a voter registration event in your school. At the end of the blog, we list some resources on how youth can get involved.

Did you know that:

-“Young people who have turned 18 since the 2020 election are a sizable group that is diversifying the electorate and can have a decisive impact on the midterms. There are an estimated 8.3 million newly eligible young voters for the 2022 midterm elections—meaning, youth who have turned 18 since the previous general election in November 2020. These 18- and 19-year-olds comprise 16% of the 18-29 age group for the 2022 election.” - Peter de Guzman, Researcher

-Young people can pre-register to vote at the age of 16. There are a number of ways that youth can be involved in the 2022 election, even if they are not old enough to vote. These include sponsoring a voter registration event, supporting family and friend’s participation, uplifting stories and issues they care about, supporting a candidate’s campaign through volunteering or being part of the election process.

-“There are distorted “assumptions about young people and how they participate in political processes that are common and are often triggered by lack of understanding and/or by prejudice. These persistent assumptions inaccurately characterize the everyday experiences of most youth – who do not constitute a homogenous group – and can lead to discrimination of young people, negatively affecting their capacity to participate in political processes… Assumptions about young people that distort the actual picture include the following: 

• they are apathetic about and disengaged from politics – so, for example, they don’t bother voting
• they lack maturity, experience, and knowledge, implying they are not capable or intelligent enough to make informed decisions (such as when voting) and are easily manipulated
• they are “anti-state,” with a propensity for violence and extremism.” – The ACE Project

ELECTION VIDEO BY RAPPER, YELLOPAIN

We learned about how teachers and youth workers can use a video by rapper, Yellopain, entitled, "My Vote Don't Count," which can be viewed by clicking on the image below. 

Source: Yellopain, Youtube.com

RESOURCES

Below are a number of other resources that you can check out:

• Growing Voters: 18 Ways Youth Under 18 Can Contribute to Elections 
• Afterschool Alliance Election Toolkit
• Rock the Vote Democracy Class
• The Civics Center- Bringing Voter Registration to Your School

You can also learn more by exploring these websites:

• Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE)
• Afterschool Alliance
• Rock the Vote
• The Civics Center

EDUCATION CULTURE WARS AND AFTERSCHOOL

In recent months schools and educators have been attacked under the guise of critical race theory, parent rights and the call to ban certain books. We published three LIAS blogs and a briefing paper (14 pages) on this topic of the education culture wars. We also sponsored a webinar entitled, Education Culture Wars and Maintaining Bipartisan Support for Afterschool. We posted a recording of this webinar on our How Kids Learn Youtube channel, which quickly received over 700 views. 

New stories of the education culture wars continue to pepper the national news and we expect this to increase over the course of the upcoming election season. 

Below we list some new articles:

• 3 Ways to Avoid Hurdles for Social-Emotional Learning 
• A School Librarian Pushes Back on Censorship and Gets Death Threats and Online Harassment 
• As Rhetoric Heats Up, Many Parents Fear Politicians Are Using Children As ‘Political Pawns’ 
• Banned-Book Author: If a Book Isn’t in the School Library, ‘It Might as Well Not Exist’ 
• Most parents want classrooms to be places of learning, not political battlegrounds 
• ED Week Spotlight on Critical Race Theory

Civic Engagement and Activism in Afterschool Programs: Forms and Strategies

Source: www.npr.org

By Sam Piha

We will be posting a series of blogs to inform and encourage expanded learning programs to start infusing civic engagement and activism in their afterschool program. NOTE: There are many program resources on the topic, some of which are detailed in our paper, Youth Civic Engagement and Activism in Expanded Learning Programs. You can read other blogs in this series here. We also held a webinar on this topic which can be viewed here.

Civic engagement and activism come in many forms. There are a number of ways to help youth build their activism skills. In this blog we detail a number of these forms and strategies. Consider how the following could be included in your expanded learning program setting. 

When their contributions are recognized, young people come to understand their place and value in the world.” - Meghan Lynch Forder 

Promoting Voting and Census Participation - "Voting and elections happen everywhere and provide valuable opportunities for young people to use their voices and have a tangible impact—and because it can serve as an entry point to other kinds of participation. But young people have political lives beyond the ballot box that meaningfully influence everything from consumer decisions to media and culture. Some youth (especially, for example, young people of color and/or LGBT youth) may see and experience their daily lives as "political" in ways that shape their views and their engagement in civic life."1 

Philanthropy - "Raising money is a concrete way for students to contribute to community or national efforts to address injustice. From organizing a bake sale around a local issue to fundraising on a larger scale for a national concern like racial disparities in the criminal justice system, raising money helps students feel like they are part of something bigger and backs the cause. Fundraisers can include selling items, auctions, entertainment, sponsoring events and more."2 

Advocacy - "This helps kids build writing skills, understand local, state, and national government, and allow them to voice their opinions about issues that affect them."3 Advocacy activities can also take many forms.  

Educate others - "As students learn about an issue they care about, their natural instinct is to share their new knowledge and insight with others. Encourage this by providing live and online opportunities for them to teach others, including their classmates, younger students and adults in their lives. This can include school assemblies, community forums, teach-ins, peer-to-peer programs and social media forums. Include opportunities to share the information in interesting ways (written, art, theatre, etc.) and they should also give other students the chance to explore their own thoughts and feelings about the topics."4 

Create a public awareness campaign that includes social media - "Creating signs and posters using art and photography can be very effective as can videos and live speeches; these are all useful skills that young people can learn. In recent years, the use of social media to raise public awareness has been largely driven by young people and is a useful vehicle for raising issues and effecting change. The use of blogs, social media sites like Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, videos, memes and online petitions are just a few examples of how words travel fast online and can incite quick and effective action."5 

Advocate for legislation - "The primary advocates for the DREAM Act have been young people known as the DREAMers, who have a personal investment in the issue. With your students, provide opportunities for them to learn about the history and impact of legislative change like the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Help them analyze proposed legislation in relation to their goals and assess the extent to which it will have an impact."6 

Do a survey about the issue and share the results - "Understanding what people think and why is helpful in bringing about social change. Students can learn more about public opinions on issues by participating in surveys themselves and also reading about them. They can also create their own surveys. Using paper surveys or online surveys, students can gain insight into how other students in their school or the larger community feel about an issue. This is useful in organizing others and addressing their concerns and needs; at the same time it builds math, critical thinking and interpersonal skills."7 

Write a letter to a company - "Students can reach out to companies or organizations that they feel have done something unfair or biased. This is something do-able that can make a difference. In crafting a well-written letter with evidence and a clear statement of what needs to change, students learn useful skills in persuasion and at the same time, it has a made a difference."8 

Get the press involved - "Help students understand that bringing publicity to their issue amplifies the message, gets more people concerned and potentially has a greater impact. They can write a press release, do an interview, write an op-ed in their local paper or invite a reporter to see what they are doing and write something about it."9 

Volunteer/ Community Service - "Youth can engage in community service on issues they care about. Serving the people who are directly impacted gives young people firsthand knowledge of the situation, deepens their understanding and builds empathy."10 

Protesting - "Marching in the streets enables students to express themselves and publicly convey what's happening while meeting and connecting with other people who feel passionate about the same issues. Demonstrations and protests can be uplifting and empowering and can help students feel like they are part of a larger movement. In preparing to attend a protest, have students consider what their goals are in attending the event and think through what message they want to convey. They can create posters, prepare songs or chants and practice symbolism that conveys their thoughts and feelings. They should consider whether they want to do individually or organize a group of students from their school to go together, make transportation arrangements and ensure that safety concerns are addressed."11 

FOOTNOTES 

1 CIRCLE, Understanding Youth Civic Engagement

2-11 Ibid

Teens Advocating for Civic Engagement

By Guest Blogger John Fuentes

What happens when adult allies continue to make authentic youth voice a priority? When High school students in various leadership groups from San Diego to Oakland, CA speak truth to power? When technology becomes a resource for across state collaboration? When young people meet up in Sacramento to speak to legislators about the challenges they’re faced with and how afterschool funding supports overcoming some of these challenges? Answer: a $50M ASES increase with the support of our “TACA”(Teens Advocating for Civic Engagement) youth.

TACA started a little over a year ago when a group of CA3 (California Afterschool Advocacy Alliance) members discussed how powerful it would be to bring more youth voice to the front lines of civic action. Myself, Brad Lupien (ARC), Donny Faaliliu (L.A. All Stars) and Aleah Rosario (CalSac) spent some time during 2018/19 school year unpacking what TACA should look and feel like.

Once a month from October to May in the 2018/19 school year approximately 8 to 12 students from 5 High Schools representing ARC, L.A All-Stars and Bay Area Community Resources (BACR) got on a Zoom chat and discussed issues they were facing in their communities and what action steps they were taking to help resolve some of these issues. With the support of CalSac’s resource guides and the support from afterschool leadership staff, TACA students learned the difference between service and civic action. They learned more about local government and what issues the local officials were passionate about. This work helped support an informed dialogue between TACA students and their local and state officials.

Source: The LA All Stars

We found that the reoccurring challenges students were faced with in their communities were affordable housing, violence, suicide, and lack of equity in education. Whether students were attending JFK high school in southern California or Oakland Tech high school in the Bay Area, these issues were similar. Using Zoom video chats, TACA students had an opportunity to see, hear and learn from other students across the state and know that they were not alone doing work. Students shared ideas, action plans and goals for sustainability and systemic change.

TACA students expressed how cool it was to be able to connect with other students across the state, share their ideas and get feedback. How cool it was to see each other on a Zoom chat once a month and then meet in person for the first time in Sacramento; to know that they played a part in getting the $50M ASES increase because they shared their stories and mobilized.

Now, in year two, TACA has over 25 members from San Diego to Oakland, CA representing 14 high schools and 4 middle schools. Me, Brad, Donny and now Ayala Goldstein (CalSac) continue to support the TACA members as adult allies and coaches. This year TACA is made up of 1-2 students who are part of an existing afterschool leadership group and represent that group during our monthly Zoom chat meetings. The goal is for the two TACA representatives from each school site to join the monthly Zooms and share their learning with their peers and mobilize for Civic Action and change.

Source: ARC

Affordable housing, violence, and education continue to be pressing topics for our TACA youth and their peers and we will continue to support them with their Civic Action goals. We have a few new goals this year which include: Supporting with the 2020 Census, getting people registered to vote and once again showing up in Sacramento on March 9th and 10th for the California Afterschool and Summer Challenge.

If you want to see, hear and learn more about TACA, please check TACA out at this year’s BOOST Conference as they lead a workshop on Thursday April 30th, 3:45-5:30pm entitled "Student- Lead Campaign for Civic Engagement." You can also email me at john.fuentes@bacr.org or Ayala Goldstein at agoldstein@calsac.org
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John Fuentes is a program manager with Bay Area Community Resources in Oakland and Alameda. In addition, John is the lead facilitator for the “Heads Up” Saturday Leadership Academy program at Head Royce School in Oakland and an expanded learning quality support coach and trainer in the San Francisco Bay Area. John is a two-time Alameda Unified School District Salute to Education recipient and a 2018 Region 4-CDE Spotlight on Quality Award recipient.