Affirming Student Voices: The Politics of Youth Advocates as Policy Actors

• In Event: 66.016 - Resisting Regressive Notions of Opportunity: Participatory Scholarship in Action

Abstract

In 2013, the state of California institutionalized a monumental shift in the way it funds its public schools referred to as Local-Control Funding Formula (LCFF). A core component of LCFF is that districts must engage stakeholders in a public process to allocate their local dollars through the development of “Local Control and Accountability Plans” (LCAP). These systems are premised on notions that by reducing state bureaucracy and increasing local flexibility and decision-making, those constituents closest to school and classroom contexts will make fair and just choices related to resource allocation and fiscal equity. From a community-based standpoint, scholars have argued the merits of participatory inquiry (Fine, Ayala & Zaal, 2012) as a method for strengthening school-based practices. In the context of historically marginalized communities and policymaking processes, scholars have also highlighted the politics of whose knowledge is privileged in decision-making processes and whose knowledge is not, and the factors that contribute to deracialized policy debates that subvert the legislative process and sideline educational justice in policy arenas (Author, 2012; 2016).
This paper is based on a mixed-methods study examining fiscal equity and participatory budget processes with a central focus on the agency of high school students as advocates and policy actors. Accordingly, the following data sources are inform this paper: three-year LCAP data and budgets (2013-2016) for four separate California districts; survey data collected from 2,000 high school students; audio recordings and transcriptions of focus group, town hall, and workshop data collected during district-level participatory budget processes; and interview data with district superintendents, high school principals, district and school level staff, and high school students engaged in LCFF and LCAP processes.
Findings highlight the extent to which districts are—and are not—investing in institutional structures that provide high school students with positive and healthy school climates, and optimal learning opportunities. As part of this paper’s analysis, I further highlight how issues of power are at play when student advocates from historically marginalized backgrounds enter the fray as policy actors, and the ways in which their epistemology and agency contribute to decolonizing policymaking processes.

Author

• Patricia D. Lopez, San José State University