Heard, Not Herded: The Case For A Student-Politician Partnership, Built Locally

By: Christopher O. Sylvester

A Lack of Political Participation Amongst Youth Persists Because No Initiative Has Shown Itself Effective Enough.

The Ignored Youth

Ask any teen or young adult if they are connected with politics, and the results will be mixed. While 56% of youth believe their vote matters, 44% are unsure if their vote matters or believe that it doesn’t at all. Their primary reason? They don’t feel listened to. According to CIRCLE research that sought to find what top change would make youth ages 18-29 participate in politics more, 48% of youth want corporations and money to have less influence on politicians, 41% want different candidates/political parties who better represent their generation and community, 41% want candidates following through on their campaign promises, and 29% want their votes and voices to matter. Young people clearly feel their opinions are drowned out by wealthy interests or ignored by politicians focused elsewhere. However, that doesn’t mean that all youth are accepting this disregard. When youth ages 18–29 who participate in politics were asked why in the same CIRCLE study, 35% responded that they want to change a system they dislike. This statistic further highlights widespread youth discontent.

This gap is driven by generational, economic, and racial differences, alongside a basic lack of political experience. To increase youth participation, politicians must stop treating young people as a group to be contacted once and forgotten about; politicians should treat them as a group to be reached. Initiatives must start smaller and more locally so youth can see themselves making an impact.

The Blocks Needed To Build

For two years in a row at my high school, I was part of student government: Treasurer in Junior year and President in Senior year. In both positions, I watched students bring concerns to leaders, only to be dismissed because they lacked hard evidence. To fight this, I went around my school, collecting data about my peers' letter grades to advocate for better help. Collecting the letter grades gave me evidence that the majority of the school had grades that were unfavorable, meaning something had to be done to fix it. Adults routinely dismiss youth concerns without hard evidence. However, this is reversible with a stronger connection between youth and local politicians. 

I realized the impact of a meeting with politicians when my fellow student government members voiced their opinions to New York State senators at the College Access Consortium of New York (CACNY) Legislative Advocacy Day in Albany, New York. For CACNY, we were tasked with coming up with proposals in order to bring more aid to students and their transitions from high school to college. We created three proposals in the form of potential bills to be passed and presented them to New York State Senators Jessica Ramos and Kevin Parker. Within those sit-downs with the state senators, my peers not only talked about our proposed bills, but they brought up what other concerns they had about their communities. Seeing their chance to be heard showed me how powerful these local connections can be.

In order for youth to feel heard by politicians and to encourage more political participation, a system must be in place that ensures collaboration between youth and politicians. It must:

• Have real data directly from teens provided to politicians.
• Allow all teens in all districts to have the opportunity to voice their opinions, regardless of race, economic or social status.
• Start with local politicians, because change on a smaller scale would give them courage to make change on a bigger scale.
• Have more than one young member in order to mitigate burnout and/or distraction from studies.
• Have members who are chosen for their interest and dedication to the role rather than those who want the role for publicity/popularity. 

Real data makes youth effort valuable to politicians, giving representatives direct information to fix policy in exchange for providing students with real-world practice. Equal regional opportunity ensures diverse participation across all social groups. 

Furthermore, local changes happen faster than national ones, proving to youth that their voices matter. Because most youth are still in school, utilizing multiple representatives protects their academic focus and limits burnout. Finally, selecting members based on skill and interest avoids superficial popularity contests. I believe past initiatives, like the New York State Governor’s Youth Council, failed because they missed these structural requirements.

Triad Model And Beyond

There must be a decentralized system that moves away from tokenized storytelling and toward collaborative, data-driven consulting for politicians to listen. The information that politicians use for metrics and statistics should not be guessed, implied, or sourced from a small group of individuals because it would focus on an isolated number of “tokens” and overlook the actual ideas and opinions of the general group. Politicians must be given vital student-made metrics while offering students a sustainable, realistic blueprint for local democratic participation. 

Furthermore, the localization initiatives to increase the participation of youth in politics are supported by CIRCLE research that examined which of the institutional bodies (national and local) young people trust the most. It was found that “Peers and neighbors” were trusted by 74% and “Town, city, and/or county governments” were trusted by 59% of people ages 18-34. This overshadowed the 37% that had some level of trust of “Congress as an institution”.

I propose the implementation of a mandated, three-person senior Student-Politician Joint Ambassador Committee. The triad divides work into three distinct roles: a Data Ambassador to survey the student body, a Legislative Liaison to communicate with local representatives, and a Communications Ambassador tasked with relaying meeting results back to the school.

There must also be pupils to the ambassadors. When seniors graduate, their hard-earned political skills risk leaving with them. To prevent this knowledge loss, active ambassadors will select an underclassman or have one selected based on interest to be their Ambassador Apprentice (this is applicable for each of the three ambassador positions). They will shadow and aid the ambassadors with what they need; in turn, they acquire the political experience and information they would need to take the job the following year. 

This model turns what happened once in Albany into something every district can build on its own.

Once introduced to schools, triads can easily collaborate to make their evidence stronger. The Triads from all the schools in one district can combine to form the District Youth Cabinet. The Cabinet would feature three different committees: Data Committee, Legislative Committee, and the Public Relations Committee, with each member joining based on their role or apprenticeship. 

By collecting, exchanging, and synthesizing data across multiple schools, students can present unified plans to their respective district representatives. This partnership will improve local communities, give young people a taste of the political world, and end the youth-political-participation drought. 
 

An aspiring diplomat, Christopher Sylvester is from New York State and is currently enrolled at Bernard M. Baruch College, majoring in International Business.