Aaron Tang

2005

Aaron Tang

Our Education

http://www.oured.org/

New Haven, Connecticut, United States

Education & Youth Leadership

The Bold Idea:

Engaging and empowering America’s youth in a national movement for quality education.

Our Education is the voice of young people across the country who believe that all American children should have access to high quality education. Created as a response to the sad reality that the most critical stakeholders in education—students themselves—do not have a voice in school reform efforts.

Biography:

Our Education was developed through Aaron’s own experience as a student activist, teacher, and mentor.

Moment of Obligation: When and why did you decide to start your organization?
We decided to start Our Education in the spring of 2003. The decision was the product of our own experiences growing up in public schools our entire lives, our observations of both pernicious inequality in our nation’s public schools as well as a shortage of excellence, and a deeply held faith in the power and ability of young people to enact positive change on the world around them. In short, we started the organization because we believe that education will improve when students themselves are engaged, inspired, and empowered to fight to improve quality of their own schools.

Who do you look up to and why?
The many leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement, because they saw a problem and recognized that the most powerful and effective way to solve it was to empower the very people who suffered from it. Lasting social change comes when individuals begin to realize their own agency and bring their civic capacity to bear on social problems – not when solutions are dictated by the few.

A snapshot in ten years: What is your dream of what's happening? What impact has your organization had?
In ten years, I envision a day when all American children receive a quality K-12 education in public schools. I believe that Our Education will have played a critical role in bringing this day about, by engaging millions of young people in thinking about and acting on their experiences and opinions regarding their own schools; by winning for young people a seat at the policy discussion table in local school boards and state and federal hearings; and by showing the American public that youth care passionately about the quality of their schools and will not rest until education is a national priority.

What's in your CD player right now?
John Legend, Get Lifted.

What are a few book recommendations (pleasure, work and anything in between)?
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, and The Schools We Need And Why We Don’t Have Them by E.D. Hirsch.

What websites do you go to often (work and personal)?

• www.nytimes.com
• www.espn.com
• www.politicalwire.com
• www.edweek.org

Quick piece of advice for people starting social change organizations:
The best advice beyond the traditional platitudes to work hard, stay committed, ask for help, and not get discouraged, is to learn as much as you can about your constituency and the "lay of the land" in your field so that when your big chance comes – and it will come if you have a good idea – you will be in position to seize the opportunity and make the most of it.