For many college undergraduates, this presidential election marks the first time they’re eligible to vote. But there are many barriers to entry, said Jennifer Wolf, a senior lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) and director of undergraduate programs at the GSE (UP@GSE).
“Oftentimes students are away from home and from all the different resources that they might typically draw on,” she said. “On top of that, they’re encapsulated inside of a fast-moving, high-demand university setting where they have to think about studying for finals,” let alone dealing with a thick ballot and deciding how to vote.
On Oct. 8 Wolf hosted a teach-in at Stanford to help prepare students for the upcoming election, with nonpartisan information on voting and a particular focus on finding ways to advocate for education through the ballot.
“Voting is not easy,” said Wolf, who hosts a teach-in for education every presidential election year. “I tell my students that voting is like studying for finals, only more important. You don’t just go in there and decide willy nilly — you have to study,” Wolf said.
Here, Wolf discusses the importance of civic education, offers tips for teachers, and suggests how voters can look for education on the ballot.
Jennifer Wolf is a senior lecturer at the GSE and director of undergraduate programs at the GSE. (Photo: Sofiia Kukhar)
What is a teach-in, and why do you host one on voting for education?
A teach-in is a brief, designed, exchange of information on a critically important current issue in the education democracy. UP@GSE hosts a variety of teach-ins — we’ve also conducted them on book banning, curricular freedom, and rampage school shootings, to name a few.
We exchange information freely on these topics, not related to a grade or credit, because we veer into political territory where people are welcome to bring different opinions.
My hope is that people come to the teach-in already solid in their own beliefs about education and what’s important to them. How they feel about school choice, teacher salaries and unionization, freedom of speech across the school sphere — those are their beliefs to form themselves.
Our job with the teach-in is to identify how to vote for those beliefs on a ballot, because it’s not super clear. And especially with education, you raise your voting power as you go lower down on the ballot.
What are some misconceptions people might have when it comes to “voting for education?”
There’s a long distance between who we vote for president and how that’s going to affect our local school district. If I want to have power over the local school district, I need to vote for my school board members and my state legislators.
Sometimes an issue of education makes it onto the votable state ballot, but more often a bill is put forward in the state legislature that you as the citizenry writ large aren’t going to vote on. The state assemblyperson and senator that you vote for are going to vote on that.
On a ballot you will see bonds for schools, but that’s almost always a funding thing. Bonds, because they’re collected through tax dollars, have to be brought forward by voters.
Almost everything else with regard to education goes through the state legislature, because in the United States, each state, protectorate, and tribal nation is responsible for its own education governance. For example, Massachusetts set up public education in 1852, but it wasn’t until 1917 that Mississippi did the same. We need to pay attention to our state legislatures with regard to education because each state has its own take.
How can we help students make informed voting decisions?
One of the things we do at the teach-in is to give people questions to ask their local legislators when it comes to their stances on issues. We also connect them with nonpartisan voting resources like Ballotpedia, where voters can enter the zip code where they’re registered to vote and see their ballot, as well as a summary of every candidate, initiative, and bond in three sentences.
There’s also Stanford Votes, Secretaries of State Voter Guides, State Policy Network, and the National Center for Education Statistics, among many others. We’re not doing this work alone. I also encourage students to look into recommendations from news outlets and organizations they trust to see why they support a particular candidate.
At the teach-in I share a matrix I use that lists all of the candidates and initiatives I’m interested in, what the recommendations are, and the stances of candidates on both sides.
We also cover education bills in play, by state, public K-12 spending per student, and some people, places, and races they may want to watch.
Some might find that level of research daunting. How can we make it less overwhelming?
I tell people to do it communally, to find other people you care about and do it together. Every year I sit with my mom and my daughter and we do it together. We have some issues where we have different beliefs, but we say this is the night when we’re going to do this, and we get out the drinks and the hors d’oeuvres.
Voting is a tool for your citizenship at the federal, state, and local realms, and each of these contributes to democracy.
What tips do you have for teachers who want to teach students about voting in a nonpartisan way?
For me, the primary thing I’ve done is lead teach-ins and take the civics education outside of the classroom. I never want a student to feel they need to meet, mimic, reflect, or agree with my political ideas in order to earn a grade.
Students need to feel free to come into a classroom and learn with their own belief system in place. I mean, we’re going to challenge it, and we’re going to talk about it, but I don’t ever want students to think they need to agree with me.
By putting this in a teach-in setting, we remove that. It’s completely voluntary and it’s not transactional in any way. You come to the teach-in and you get knowledge, a sticker, cookies, and an apple. There’s nothing else to be gained.
For me that’s one thing that’s really important in teaching civics education. We just want to empower students to vote, not in a specific way or for a specific person.
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