Teen panel offers ideas on 'reinventing' high schools

Sun-Times:

A teen advisory committee spent the summer surveying hundreds of their peers citywide. Now, it has passed along its findings to schools chief Ron Huberman in a report, "How to Reinvent Chicago Public High Schools."

Among the 30 recommendations: Make class sizes smaller, have teachers offer weekly office hours for students, and provide mediation alternatives rather than just suspending students.

The students also had loftier suggestions -- such as adding to current graduation requirements two years of extracurricular activities and college-level courses, and application to at least five post-secondary schools.

"What was interesting was that students said their high school courses were not challenging," said Alex Marquez, 16, a junior at John Hancock High School and one of the authors of the report. "I would have thought they'd say it was too hard. Students want to be challenged."

They also want to be engaged.

"Some 80 percent stated that they did not have interesting classes," said co-author Janelle Perez, 17, a junior at Jones College Prep. "They said current offerings were irrelevant to their lives and that there aren't enough vocational courses. I think teachers and administration assume they're offering interesting classes and students are engaged. Not true."

The 15-student committee worked with the Mikva Challenge, an organization that aims to "help low-income Chicago youth become meaningful actors in politics."

The students surveyed 400 teens on everything from discipline and teacher quality to school culture and curriculum.

If only such a study was conducted in my time although what I have to say about high schools now would prolly be different that what I would have said when I was still in high school. Some lofty ideas are used here in and hopefully most of them will be utilized.