Eligible voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds in last year’s general election in California was 8.2 percent.
In Los Angeles County, only 6.8 percent of eligible 18-24-year-olds voted.
How should this civic indifference be addressed? By making voter registration easier? By creating more options to cast a ballot?
On Tuesday morning at 11:30 at Culver City High School, Secretary of State Alex Padilla, Assemblymember Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-Culver City/Crenshaw District), County Supt. Arturo Delgado and Judge Halim Dhanidina will kick off High School Voter Education Weeks.
Culver City is one of 10 high schools that has institutionalized effective civic learning practices for all their students through the California Democracy in School Project.
This 90-minute event will give students an opportunity to ask about local and statewide issues, how to get civically engaged, and implications of civic participation on the judicial system.
Students will showcase positive steps they are doing at their own school and in their community.
Civic motivation is another key element in improving young voter turnout.
For decades, most K-12 students have not had access to effective civic learning opportunities that motivate and prepare them to be engaged participants in a democracy.
When the opportunities have existed, their distribution has been unequal. Students in average-income income schools vs. students in higher-income schools were:
- Two times less likely to report studying how laws are made.
- Two times less likely to report participating in civic learning.
- Eighty percent less likely to participate in political discussion or debates.
An abundance of research shows that when K-12 students participate in relevant civic education and practice civic engagement they learn to care about and connect with their community and society and begin to understand that they have the power to affect change.
Within the past year, the Power of Democracy initiative led by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, has brought together statewide leaders including Mr. Padilla, state Supt. Tom Torlakson, and statewide organizations who are working together to make quality civic learning opportunities available for all students at all K-12 schools.
Local Civic Learning Partnerships have been activated in six counties throughout the state to work with school districts and community leaders to implement the Six Proven Practices in Civic Learning (the pillars of the K-12 Task Force recommendations) at all K-12 schools.
Register to attend at
http://lacoe.k12oms.org/1537-104735
Mr. Maleman may be contacted at gmaleman@aool.com
I think that this is a great program and I am so pleased to see that we are being pro-active to get our students engaged in the political process and to understand the privilege of living in a democratic society and what their responsibilities are as citizens of our Country.
However, there is nothing like learning from example and getting parents to lead the way . It is sad to see how few parents vote in Culver City even when the issues being voted upon will directly effect their children.
If there is some way to get the parents involved in these High School activities that would be even better.
We are also very fortunate to have a great YMCA in Culver City that has a very active Youth and Government Program for our teens.
After reading this article. I dashed off and attended this forum. It was very well done, the speakers were all very inspiring and I hope that they inspired all of students to get involved in the democratic process. We are the first High School in the County of LA if not the State to initiate such a program.
Maybe it will be the students who will be setting the example for our parents to get involved and vote. I know that there are many involved parents in our District and in our City; however there is always room for more.
We have a School Board election coming up in Nov. and hopefully the turnout will be better than in the past.