Youth Radio -- Youth Media International

By: Rayana Godfrey

It has always been a rule: No electronic devices in class, and No using social networks during school hours.

For a long time, teacher and parents have stood by this rule, to the dismay of students.

However, according to KQED, a new study called

By: Sayre Quevedo

The United States Department of Education recently issued recommended reforms for Career and Technical Education (CTE). The proposal, titled, “Investing in America’s Future: A Blueprint for Transforming Career and Technical Education,” is a rough outline of what the department believes are the necessary steps to...

By: Robyn Gee

Education reform is full of silver bullet ideas. A favorite among some communities is single-gender education.

But Richard Fabes, director of the Sanford Harmony Program (SHP) and Professor at Arizona State University, believes that single-sex learning situations promote and reinforce gender-norms and stereotypes. In contrast,...

By: Robyn Gee

Recent data from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights shows that black and Latino students are much more likely to get suspended from school than their white peers -- especially for subjective minor offenses, like disrupting classroom activities. California State Assemblymember Sandre Swanson...

Originally published on Youthradio.org, the premier source for youth generated news throughout the globe.

By: Youth Radio

Bicycle pump-powered rockets, lunch box speakers, and paper airplanes are just a few of the projects students have tackled in an after-school program launched by MAKE, a leader in...

By: Robyn Gee

A new report by Melissa Kearney and Philip Levine at the University of Maryland, suggests that common ideas about teenage pregnancy might be backwards.  

Teenagers in the United States are more likely to become teen parents than teenagers in other western countries....

By: Robyn Gee

Story after story about college students graduating with mountains of debt permeate the news every day. Headlines like, “A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College,” suggest that today’s 18 - 34 year olds can’t pursue their dreams without shouldering years of debt repayment....

By: Robyn Gee

When white teachers were asked to give feedback on C-minus level essays, they gave more positive feedback when they believed the student writers were African American or Latino. That's according to a new study by Kent Harber, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Rutgers University at...

Photo Credit: JENNY BOLARIO/Youth Radio

Lawrence, 27, gets a tattoo removed from the back of his neck.

By: Jenny Bolario and Teresa Chin

For many young people, tattoo removal goes more than skin deep.

Simon Alison was in 9th grade and struggling...

By: Robyn Gee

“Be data driven, not data drowning,” is the slogan for Kickboard for Teachers -- an educational software, designed to help teachers and administrators collect data regarding their students’ academic and behavioral performance in one place.

Data is the name of the game in American...

This story originally aired on NPR's All Things Considered.

By Brandon McFarland

Marvin Gaye’s album, What’s Going On, has been called one of the great soul music records of all time. The album was showcased at a 1972 concert at the Kennedy Center in Marvin’s hometown of Washington DC. This week, the Kennedy Center is commemorating that live performance, and has asked select musicians to re-imagine “What’s Going On” -- and I'm one of those musicians.

Until the release of the album What’s Going On, Marvin Gaye’s best known songs, like "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," focused on love and relationships. But in 1971, influenced by letters from his brother, who was serving in the Vietnam War, Marvin wanted to make an album that reflected America in 1971 through the eyes of a vet returning home; home where many black neighborhoods were still decimated after the riots of ‘68, and raised fists, the hippie movement, the women’s movement and urban poverty were boiling together on the streets of America. And the war raged on.

"When MG made this record, everybody’s brother could have gone to war. Everybody, themselves could have gone to war, so they personally felt connected," said soul singer John Legend. Legend has been working on his own version of What’s Going On, to perform live at the Kennedy Center in a commemorative concert on Thursday, May 3.

"I start to realize my vocal limitations when I think about trying to do justice to Marvin Gaye’s incredible voice," Legend laughed. "I imagine we’ll be somewhat faithful (to the original arrangement). We don’t want to 2012 remix it."

That’s funny, because that’s the exact challenge I’ve been given. I'm a journalist who moonlights as a music producer, and the Kennedy Center gave me the original recording session of What’s Going On to create a remix that flips Marvin’s music for my generation. So I get to unravel the original song, and then put all the elements back together my way.

When I first got my hands on the raw material, Marvin's multitracks, I had to take a moment and let it all sink in. Here I was with the purest version of the song, that only a handful of people have ever heard. Before I let anyone else in on Marvin’s magic, I wanted to get to know the science of the music. I loading up the tracks, pretty much playing conductor on my computer. I soloed Marvin’s voice, and then brought in the instruments one by one. And as I unpacked each instrument, I was floored by not only the simplicity of it but the rawness too: Marvin knew very well how to make a polished Motown hit, he’d been doing it for years. But that’s not what he wanted with this record.

I didn’t want to veer too far away from the structure of Marvin’s original song. So I wrote down the structure: a four bar intro, a pair of 12 bar verses, etc. From there, I kept tweaking the beat and working on my own verse for the remix. I rounded up younger artists too, who could write their own new verses. But I had to set a few ground rules for the young musicians, out of respect for Marvin. Stick to the core storytelling ideals of What’s Going On, find your own voice within it, and make it relevant to your generation.

Twenty-two-year-old Evan Childress wrote a rap for the remix. He was inspired the way the original album surfaced issues across the spectrum of American life. Childress wrote his verseabout everything from pollution, to a lack of resources in his hometown of Richmond, California.

"In addition to thinking about the Trayvon Martin case," said 18-year-old Rayana Godfrey, one of my singers on the remix, "I was thinking about my cousin, who was shot and killed last year." Godfrey is from Vallejo, California, and the other singer on the remix, Skylar Bryant, is from Oakland.

 Youth Radio reporters are live Tweeting May Day demonstrations in Oakland, California @YouthRadio, and we're archiving the stream on this page.

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UPDATE: 5:05 PM  Boots, a member of a political hip-hop group called The Coup, was among the hundreds of protestors gathered at Oakland’s Frank Ogawa Plaza...

Originally published on Youthradio.org, the premier source for youth generated news throughout the globe.

By: Sayre Quevedo

It's widely assumed that most crimes committed by juveniles are sealed or expunged when the person turns 18, but that's far from the case. In most states young people have...

By: Youth Radio

Photo Credit: Denise Tejada/Youth Radio

A crowd of protesters gather outside Oaksterdam University in Oakland, California, as federal agents raid the facility.

Federal agents raided Oaksterdam University this week, armed with search warrants claiming that the business is too...

By: Sayre Quevedo

By: Joaquin E. DiazDeLeon

Photo Credit: Brett Myers/Youth Radio

I didn’t learn much of anything while I was locked inside California’s Division of Juvenile Justice. Most of my teachers were a little too old and a little too...

By: Sayre Quevedo

In 2005, California's juvenile prison system got a face lift. The name changed from CYA, short for California Youth Authority, to the Division of Juvenile Justice or DJJ. And many policies began to change along with the name.

Today DJJ's population is just over a thousand wards,...

By: Sayre Quevedo

In the coming months the state of California will see much of its juvenile state prison responsibilities handed down to counties. It's all part of a reform effort spearheaded by Governor Jerry Brown called "realignment."

Turnstyle sat down with Sumayyah Waheed—the director of the Ella...

Last month, the California State Senate approved a bill to develop a Creativity and Innovation Education Index, designed to measure how schools are fostering creativity among their students. California is just one of several states to implement a law like this, Massachusetts being the first, according...

By: Robyn Gee

Professor Diane Ravitch is a big voice in education policy and a huge critic of No Child Left Behind.

Yet, as former Assistant Secretary of Education under President George H. W. Bush, she helped promote the same policies she's now criticizing.

Ravitch's latest book is called, The...