Our mission is to close the achievement gap The Student Voice Project (SVP) envisions a world in which educational inequity no longer exists. It is no news that the American public education system is in crisis, particularly in our inner cities. Yet while many well-publicized initiatives seek to improve achievement in reading and math, skills that are crucial to every academic and career path are all but forgotten: critical thinking and writing. The ability to gather, interpret, and present information is in danger of becoming a lost art, leaving a generation of youth at a huge disadvantage. SVP intends to fill this need by equipping the next generation of youth with these skills through engaging them in meaningful journalism study.
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SVP thus exists to seed high-quality and self-sustaining journalism programs in inner-city schools. Through its 2-year model of startup support that leaves schools with a robust journalism elective, SVP will give a generation of youth the opportunity to engage in, and reap the benefits of, journalism instruction. What differentiates SVP is not only its uniquely developed curriculum, but also its focus on providing professional development, training, and coaching for teachers.
Yet, SVP knows that journalism electives alone are not the ultimate solution to closing the achievement gap in critical thinking and writing. Thus, SVP aspires in the long-term to reform an education system that has let too many students fall through the cracks. Specifically, through proving its model and demonstrating its impact in inner-city schools in Los Angeles, SVP ultimately hopes to integrate journalism instruction into the mandatory English Language Arts curriculum, thus affording all students the benefits of journalism study.