The full set of five policy recommendations, authored by the Aspen Institute Education & Society Program in partnership with 40 education leaders including Student Voice, can be found on the Aspen Institute website.

Student Voice is proud to have co-authored and endorsed a recent set of recommendations entitled “Supporting Students to be Independent Learners: State and District Actions for the Pandemic Era” from the Aspen Institute Education & Society Program regarding culturally and linguistically responsive education. The recommendations will aid school districts in developing the successful plans for resuming education, but more importantly they will help students become independent learners.

The set of five policy recommendations calls on states to:

1. Enable community partnerships to bring valuable cultural capital into schools.
2. Ensure all students have access to rigor.
3. Equip the education workforce to engage students with rigor through culturally and linguistically responsive education (CLRE).
4. Amend state laws and regulations to define “safety” and “school safety” in ways that encompass students’ experience of psychological/intellectual safety and belonging.
5. Improve and prioritize school climate measurement and support to better attend to cultural and linguistic diversity.
   

Student Voice’s Executive Director, Taylor Kahn-Perry, endorsed the recommendations on behalf of Student Voice and committed to joining in a call to action to ensure a culturally and linguistically responsive approach to social, emotional, and academic development in the pandemic era.

Student Voice’s guiding principles for reopening schools, authored in partnership with over a dozen youth-driven organizations in the Education Justice Collective, which include a commitment to culturally and linguistically responsive education, can be found at the Move School Forward website.