At a recent education forum in New Orleans, Curtis Valentine, co-director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s Reinventing America’s Schools Project, joined other Black education and equity leaders to answer a simple question.

Can listening directly to students improve their school experience?

If data uncovered from the recent Gallup/Walton Family Foundation Student Report Card is any indication, the answer is a resounding yes.

For the second year in a row, the survey of more than 2,000 students graded their schools a B- overall. Schools scored a C+ from students on “teaching you skills that are relevant to your future.” Students also gave schools a C+ on topic of whether schools made students “excited to learn.” Grades were even lower from low-income students. Only 20% of those students gave their schools an A.

“The question is: Is a B- good enough?” asked Curtis. “The future that we want for our children, will a B- get us there?”

Panelists at the “Lifting Up Black Voices: Inspiring Bold Solutions” forum, sponsored by the foundation, offered solutions for how schools can do better for students.

Rhonda Broussard is founder and CEO of Beloved Community, a consulting service that centers under-represented populations in solving complex, systemic issues related to housing, workforce and education. She says one of the most important ways that schools can improve experiences for students and families is to create a sense of belonging and “shared voice, shared power.”

“Most of our schools are striving to get better at unidirectional communication,” Rhonda says of clients that push information out to families and students without encouraging them to also engage. “They're like, ‘Well, we added Spanish, that's great.’ But you aren’t asking them for anything in return. You're just expecting them to listen to what the teacher has to say.”

Rhonda says it’s important to listen to students and families. Schools should make space for them to actively contribute to decision-making through student advisory councils, participatory budgeting and surveys. That creates a greater sense of belonging and ownership over their education.

In New Orleans, Rhonda’s team actively engages students to develop their own solutions through compensated research. The team trained 70 youth participants to conceptualize, design and ask and analyze questions important to them in their community.

In one cohort, the students surveyed 800 of their peers on mental health needs. “That's going to change policy faster than us sending in adults. And it's going to create a stronger sense of engagement and accountability,” says Rhonda. “They not only know the content because they're living this experience, but they know the solutions.”

When it comes to better preparing students for careers of the future, science communicator Martina Efeyini says they must know these jobs exist first.

Martina is the founder of The Next Scientist. She specializes in creative storytelling and crafting content that makes science engaging and accessible to students, specifically young women of color.

“Science is everywhere,” she says. “But when I asked students in a recent focus group if they could name a living scientist, they all said no. This tells me that we need to do more work to showcase the visibility of scientists, and give examples of Black women like Danni Washington,  Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, and Dr. Jedidiah Isler. We need to make sure that our girls know science is within us. Science is in our culture. It’s in our heritage.”

Martina saw this firsthand during her time as a Civic Science Fellow for Science News, a legacy newsroom.

“They have a traditional way of doing things, and I came in there as the only Black woman. I said, ‘You know what? If you want to engage this new generation of young people, you have to trust me as a Black woman [in science] who was also once a Black little girl.’”

Beyond her own lived experience, Martina conducts focus groups of teens who tell her exactly what interests them in the sciences.

“I don’t want to talk at them, I wanted to co-design with them. They want to see Black and Brown people on the screen. They want to see people that look like them in science.” The teen focus groups also suggested an unlikely medium – TikTok. One video where Martina discusses the DNA in Beethoven’s hair went viral, receiving over 350,000 views.

Having an adult you can trust in the school building is also critical to elevating the school experience for students of color.

When Rhonda and her partners audit schools, they make sure to ask students, “Who is the adult in the building that you trust and respect the most?” Sometimes that adult is a teacher who pushes a student directly to sign up for an AP course. Other times – especially for students of color – that trusted adult isn’t always a teacher.

“My grandmother was a secretary, and my grandfather was a custodian,” says Rhonda. “Every school I ever went to, the secretary and the custodian would come find me and say, ‘Your grandparents told me you were coming. If you need anything, I’m here for you.’ How do we create that same level of respect for the custodians and the guidance counselors and the coaches and the cafeteria ladies? To help them be as engaged in a student care team as teachers are in a student academic plan?”

Representation of Black school employees also needs to grow, says Rhonda, largely because of the cultural communication that happens between a student of color and their trusted adult.

When a student sees a Black or Brown teacher or school employee, they think, “Oh, you look like me or you sound like me. You sound like my mother or my grandmother,” says Rhonda. “The very specific ways a [Black] teacher might look at you across the playground, and you know exactly what they mean? I can't teach that to my white colleague.”

Martina says educators also need to get students engaged in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Math) education as early as possible. “Studies show us that Black girls love science at ages 8 and 9. It is innate. It is natural. But something happens around puberty where they want to be cool and popular. They lose interest.” She says mentorship programs and organizations like Black Girls Code can help seal the “leaky pipeline” of girls in STEM.

There is no question that right now, schools are falling short of student expectations. But listening, cultivating deep connections and including them in decisions can lead to an education that inspires a life filled with opportunity.

At the end of the day, Rhonda believes that centering student voice in their own education will rely on “getting the adults in the room to understand that change is possible.”

“What are you scared is going to happen if you allow young people to communicate their greatest ideas and their greatest concerns? You said youth voice mattered. You said parent voice mattered. Well, they are the ones who are going to hold you accountable to that promise.”