As advocates, we’ve all had that pivotal moment when doing nothing was no longer an option and the time to act was at our feet. Whether from boiled-over anger or powerful optimism, we chose to organize and to look toward those who came before us to help us lead the charge. For many, that leader, thoughtful voice, powerhouse of passion, tireless force, and champion for those in need was Jesse Jackson. While Jackson may no longer march beside us, his legacy lives on and remains ingrained in the progress made in civil rights, educational equity, and political empowerment. In honor of Jackson’s legacy and Black History Month, we’re reflecting on his critical influence on K-12 education and highlighting two lessons from his activism and advocacy that we can each carry in our own work.  

1) Uplift everyone’s voice  

On a small New York stage in 1972, surrounded by school-aged children, Jesse Jackson recited the poem “I am Somebody” one line at a time as a group of children repeated each word as an affirmation. The message was simple: regardless of your zip code, your income, or your racial identity, your voice is powerful, and you matter. Just as he encouraged those children to feel his words and believe him, we, as advocates, must empower others to find and use their voices. Our shared passion to fight for children and ensure all students receive a quality education brings all of us together. 

Jackson, who was mentored by Martin Luther King Jr, understood the importance of investing in others and giving them a platform to be heard. His nurturing disposition helped several influential leaders in public service, law, and civil rights build on the momentum he started.  To make our work sustainable and our goals attainable, we must approach advocacy from a unified place that lives on after we are gone.   

2) Remember the who in what you do  

Jackson, who attended and graduated from a segregated school, carried his own painful and motivating educational experiences with him, notably including being denied entry to a library because of his race, which then led to a “read-in” with him and seven other students known as the Greenville Eight. His advocacy for equitable funding for K-12 public schools, violence prevention in schools, and direct support through scholarships provided by his organization, PUSH Excel, are tangible, positive outcomes of his fight for educational equity.  

Who motivates you to fight for students? Maybe, like Jackson, it’s a younger version of yourself who felt the impact of oppressive and inequitable educational policies. Maybe it’s your own children, grandchildren, or children in your community in need of representation and opportunity. Whoever it may be, we can take a note from Mr. Jackson and keep them in focus each day we call for action and change.  

As Jesse Jackson once said at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, “We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. On tomorrow night and beyond, keep hope alive.” Mr. Jackson is a powerful force to recognize for Black History Month, but his impact and lessons for advocacy remain vital to remember year-round.  

How much time do you spend on your phone each day? If you’re anything like the average U.S. adult, according to a recent YouGov poll you’re averaging more than 5 hours a day of screen time— and that doesn’t even take into account your TV, smart fridge and robot vacuum cleaner. We all know that our overuse of screen-based devices is a problem, with a large percentage of adults actively attempting to limit their screentime.

Now imagine if you’d had an iPad since you were in diapers. That’s the reality for many of the Gen Alpha students who are using their phones for an average of 1 hour of school time each day, playing games, scrolling on social media, and watching videos.

Young people are becoming more aware of the problem with cell phone dependency, but it’s not as easy as telling them to just “put down their phones” as adults often say. These distraction machines are built to keep their attention, even when they should be focused on learning or connecting with peers.

With school-age kids spending more than half of their waking hours in school, it is important that schools create an environment for children to develop the skills they need to succeed, including how to learn, think, and connect without screens.  

Here are 5 reasons our schools should go phone free:

Up to 97% of students report using their phones during the day — spending an average of 1 hour of class time on social media, YouTube, or gaming.

And the distraction isn’t limited to just the student on their phone. Phone use during class creates a ripple effect, distracting all the students around them, and even students in other classrooms who may be receiving text messages or DMs from their friends.

A pair of studies out of the University of California show that it takes between 8 and 23 minutes to refocus after being distracted. Meaning, one distraction from a phone might cause a student to lose focus for nearly half a class period.

UPenn Professor of Psychology, Angela Duckworth laid the issue out clearly— the further students are from their phones, the higher their GPA.

With the heartbreaking frequency of school-wide emergencies in the U.S., it is completely understandable that parents and families may be nervous about the idea of students not having access to their phones throughout the school day.

But, researchers and safety experts, including the Association of School Resource Officers, have consistently concluded that students’ access to cell phones actually make them less safe in an emergency situation.

During a school-wide emergency, it is critical that students are able to focus on receiving potentially life-saving instructions from staff, resource officers, and first responders. When they’re on their phones, they can be distracted, or cause others to miss instructions. And when hundreds or even thousands of students attempt to make calls on their phones at once, it can clog the networks and hinder emergency responders from communicating during an emergency.

That’s why any proposed cell phone policy must clearly outline contingencies for school-wide emergencies such as text or email emergency communication systems for families to stay informed on what is happening in their school, without leading to dangerous confusion and distraction. Families must have a voice in deciding these systems to ensure they work for the entire school community.

There is an abundance of evidence that links extensive cell phone usage to negative mental health effects on young people. Young people who spend a lot of time on their phones report increased levels of anxiety, including social media driven anxiety.

These anxieties include low self-esteem caused by the endless comparison from social media which acts as a highlight reel, making it appear that everyone else is more attractive, more social, and more successful than you.

Anxiety is also driven by current events, breaking news, and other points of fear-inducing content that, while important for young people to stay informed, in the massive quantities and graphic details shown on social can have detrimental mental health effects on children.

Students at schools who have already gone phone-free report feeling less anxiety, and increased self-esteem.

It is up to parents to determine the right balance of social media use for their children, but our schools do have a responsibility to ensure classrooms are safe, affirming spaces that allow students to develop into healthy, well-rounded community members.

So many young people today struggle to connect with their peers, and deal with serious social anxiety, much of which can be linked to social media and screens in general.

Phone-free schools allow students to actually talk to each other between classes and at lunch time, rather than immediately putting their AirPods in and scrolling on their phones.

Schools with phone-free policies report students talking with each other, creating new clubs to learn skills like crocheting or woodworking, and building connections across class years!

If the above reasons weren’t enough, then think of the teachers!

Even the most interactive lesson plan is going to have an impossible time competing with TikTok for students’ attention. It’s no wonder that 83% of educators support full-day cell phone bans.

While the national teacher shortage and teachers leaving the field have stabilized since the extreme highs at the start of the pandemic, there are still over 400,000 teacher positions in the U.S. that are unfilled, underfilled, or filled by people who do not meet the qualifications (such as those without a teaching license). 53% of teachers report feeling burnout, with teachers being more likely than other workers to report poor wellbeing on every indicator.

If districts want to hire and retain qualified educators, they need to do their part to reduce the burden on already over-stretched teachers and staff. That includes removing distractions from their classrooms that don’t allow then to do their job effectively.

Our schools must establish clear, consistent, effective cell phone policies that address the harms of in-school cell phone use. Across the country, principals and school leaders have proven that phone-free policies are possible — and powerful.  

Courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library

While often overlooked and undervalued by decision makers, students and young people have long since been at the forefront of social justice movements across the world. That is equally true of the mid-20^th century Chicano/Latino Rights Movement in the United States.

In 1968, 75% of the students enrolled East Lost Angeles public schools were Latino. They faced severe discrimination from their mostly white teachers and school administrations. Schools were severely understaffed, underfunded, and unmaintained, with classroom sizes averaging 40 students and individual school counselors being assigned to manage 4000 students each.

On top of the funding disparities, Latino students were also met with open and systemic prejudice from both their educators and within the curriculum. Latino students were often tracked as being “not college material” and actively discouraged from higher education. Spanish was prohibited in school, with some students reporting being disciplined or even beaten for speaking Spanish. Teachers spoke down to them, reportedly using slurs against students. And their textbooks reflected these same anti-Latino biases with no mention of the histories and contribution of Latino communities in the United States.

Under these conditions, it is no surprise that East LA schools had some of the highest dropout rates in the country, with Garfield High School having a dropout rate of 58%.

The growing frustration of students came to a head on March 1, 1968, when more than 200 students walked out of Wilson High School in East LA. The walkout was motivated by the principal of Wilson canceling a play students wrote about social issues Chicano youth were facing.

This spontaneous act ignited students across East LA to organize similar, though more structured, protests that would come to be known as the Chicano Blowouts.

A few days later, 2000 students walked out of class at Garfield High School. By the end of the week more than 15,000 students walked out of schools across East Los Angeles.

While the demands of the students were not met at that moment, their activism ignited their communities and peers into demanding change in their education system, as well as other areas where Latinos faced marginalization. It is on the shoulders of this student movement that we have seen the increased number of districts offering dual language education, and the increased inclusion of Latino history in schools.

The story of an Air Force veteran, the impact of military recruitment in public schools, and imagining alternate paths for class mobility.

As a Mexican American growing up in a white, working-class community in northern California, Air Force veteran, Christina experienced a familiar, painful brand of everyday racism. From her peers checking to see if she had beans with every meal, to the comments about how her parents crossed the river to get here.

Looking back at high school, Christina notes the deep impact that the ingrained structural racism of the K-12 system had on her.  She was thrilled to make the cutoff grade for an Honors English class until she found out the following fall that she’d been removed from the class, while at least one peer shared with her how his parents demanded he be included in the course, even though he had not made the grade cutoff.  She was left behind, demoralized and losing her motivation to work hard in school.

“I ended up failing the first semester and having to do night school in order to graduate on time. It was a reality check for me about my actual place in the world.”

Christina’s story is a common one among veterans. For many, the military has served as a pathway towards education and financial stability that would not have been otherwise possible in the communities they come from. Joining the military can provide young people from unstable backgrounds a catalyst toward a solid upward path of increasing financial sustainability.

Over the last 20 years, Americans across the country have seen their wages stagnate, as prices for necessities like food, housing, and utilities continue to rise. The one group of Americans (outside of the top 1%) who have been exempt from this stagnation are military families.  This makes the military seem particularly appealing to young people from resource deprived neighborhoods growing up in uncertain times.

Since the era of all-volunteer forces began at the end of the Vietnam war, recruitment has become increasingly important to maintaining the 1.4 million person active duty force. Beginning in 2001, any school that receives federal funding is required under the No Child Left Behind Act to provide the Pentagon data on all students in 11th and 12th grades, as well as grant recruiters access to their campus. That data includes their names, phone numbers, email addresses, ethnicities, and other identifying information.

Parents do have a right to opt out of the data-sharing, but busy parents in working class communities often don’t know it’s happening, let alone how to opt out. That disproportionately effects rural students, low-income students, and students of color. While the benefits of military service helped Christina achieve her higher education dreams and a solid middle-class lifestyle, there is no denying that military service is a risky gamble.

“In the more affluent communities, they know that their kids aren’t going to need that [class mobility] and they don’t want to put their kids’ lives in danger. There’s an understanding of what the military is and what it does.

Whereas in poorer communities, it’s seen as a leg up. It’s free education. It’s a career opportunity. It’s job training, it’s serving your country, it’s honorable. It’s a completely different perception of what the military is and what it can do for you. And it’s a worthwhile tradeoff for somebody coming from a poor community.”

What is most troubling about this is that if moving our society towards an equitable and peaceful future is the goal, that goal necessitates other ways of moving people out of poverty besides military enlistment or student debt.

We know it is possible to lift marginalized communities out of poverty without sending 17-year-olds to war. If we want to build a world where every student, no matter their background, can make decisions without fearing for their financial security, we have to start to dream bigger.

“The military was a gamble that paid off for me and I’m grateful for where I am. But people need to recognize systemically why this gamble even exists.”

Christina believes all students should have safe, healthy pathways to higher education and out of poverty, and her work at Stand is helping develop those pathways.  “I hope that today’s graduates feel like they have a choice.”

---