Education is key to enacting national policy changes, experts and students said Saturday at the Roosevelt Institute’s D.C.-International Regional Conference.
Danica Petroshius, former chief of staff to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., said at the conference on Saturday that education could be the next bipartisan effort.
“I think education should be of interest to everybody in the country,” she said. “It is the core of any community.”
Petroshius said D.C. students are at a particular advantage to enact change.
“Not everyone lives in a reform incubator,” she said.
More than 60 students from AU, George Washington University, Georgetown University and the University of Maryland heard from four guest speakers on education, green energy, Social Security and the future of democracy.
The Roosevelt Institute is a non-partisan, student-run policy organization that empowers college students to create solutions for community-based issues, according to Aaron Goldstein, AU’s Roosevelt Institute chapter president and a junior in the School of Public Affairs.
“We’re here as college students,” Goldstein said. “In the past we’re really been left out of the debate, but Roosevelt is here to fix that.”
The D.C. Advocacy/Lobbying Committee, an initiative of the Roosevelt Institute, is divided into six policy centers, including one focused on education.
“I think education is all about future generations,” said Jeff Raines, a co-chair of the education policy center and a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. “The better education programs we have, the more prepared future generations can be to lead this country.”
A few months ago, Raines was on a conference call with the Roosevelt Institute’s national strategist for the education policy center and mentioned the need for Advanced Placement reform.
Because of this, AP reform is now one of the Roosevelt Institute’s national initiatives.
“We obviously are making steps,” said Raines, “and that’s a giant one for us, to actually get something that we talked about in a meeting to be added to the national agenda for Roosevelt.”
Kate Brandt, an alumna of Brown University’s Roosevelt Institute chapter and special assistant to the secretary of Navy for energy policy, said college students will influence the future of green energy.
“It’s so important for students to go into these fields and become our world experts,” she said.
llandau@theeagleonline.com
