On February 12, Passionfruit successfully hosted our 2nd conference, “Towards a Just Society: Education Reform,” thanks to our wonderful participants. In line with Passionfruit’s aim to increase youth’s awareness of social justice issues, we spoke with Dr. Dorainne Green of Indiana University, Kelton Chatsulik of the College Advising Corps, and Hayward, CA high school teacher Mo Kim regarding current education issues prevalent to youth. Here, we recap some of these conversations. 

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Dr. Dorainne Green, Indiana University:

“One of the main drivers of my work is understanding the factors that contribute to social inequality and disparities to address [consequences of group-based social stress on academic achievement].” Research shows social inequality is correlated with health and well-being, and “I’ve recently started to connect the inequalities in health and well-being to educational inequality.”

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Kelton  Chatsulik, College Advising Corps:

“Rural students aren’t often talked about…rural students make up 14% of the American student population today, and have higher graduation, standardized test scores compared to the national average…however, something goes wrong when it comes to what happens after high school. Rural college going rates are lower than those in urban/suburban areas.”

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Mo Kim, high school teacher:

“The discourse is, we have a crisis in writing [in America]. Our kids don’t know how to write…but [my students’] writing tells me a different story. The tests measure compliance, not content knowledge. I think they know how to write, they just need to do it. I think we often see our students through a deficit-based lens, they can’t do this, they can’t do that, they can’t do anything—but we don’t talk about what they can do. We just need to give them the room to do it.”

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After this session, have your thoughts changed at all? 

“In just one day we were able to hear about the academic side and the application side of education equity. Before my idea of education equity and reform was pretty narrow, but this conference helped me see that education equity and reform can encompass so much more!”

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Remaining questions 

“I wonder if we are negotiating with the current system by relying on college (especially selective, predominantly white, private institutions) as the main source of experience and post-HS education. Are there alternatives that can be fostered while providing the education/experiences the current selective colleges have?”

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Some concluding thoughts from our participants 

“I appreciated everyone's respect for one another and creating a space that I felt comfortable sharing in.”

“My brain is breathing, my heart is filled with energy and ambition to implement everything we learned today in everything that is to come! so thankful for the speakers' time and expertise, and thankful for everyone present for having made this experience so positive and comfortable.”

“I liked the varied perspectives from the presenters-- they all helped me think about education reform from a different perspective.”