Youth media and education reform

Michael F. Shaughnessy, a professor at Eastern New Mexico and columnist for ednews.org, recently invited me to participate in an e-mail interview about ThreeSixty and the drop-out project we helped produce for Best Buy’s teen website.

Shaughnessy’s questions went beyond those topics to probe my thoughts about secondary education’s shortcomings: Why do so many college freshmen need remedial courses? Do we help kids by passing them through with D averages? Should we bring back the old-fashioned term paper? “Read the full interview.:http://www.ednews.org/articles/an-interview-with-lynda-mcdonnell-high-school-graduation-and-writing.html

My expertise is journalism, not education reform, but Shaughnessy’s questions reminded me that all of us — particularly those of us who work with teens — have a responsibility to engage in these deeper questions. Youth journalism is not just about building skills for the students we work with directly but serving the audience of young people who consume what our students produce.

Keith Hefner, founder and executive director of Youth Communication — a much-honored, 30-year-old youth journalism program in New York City, has taught me a lot in the eight years I’ve headed ThreeSixty. A recent memo he shared with me reminded me that audience and partnerships — particularly with schools — are critical to our work. Those principles will guide ThreeSixty’s work in the coming year.

For teen writers, having an audience makes it easier to enforce standards, and the satisfaction of having people read and react to one’s work is enormous. Distribution of our content allows our work to have impact on adults and teens alike.

But like most youth media groups, ThreeSixty is small, with a budget of less than $200,000 a year. Our main presence is on this website, which attracts about 2,500 unique visitors a month.

To build a larger audience for student work, we must build stronger partnerships with schools, media organizations, government agencies, and other businesses and nonprofits that communicate with teens. I welcome your ideas about how to do so.