I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dustin Manuel, one of NYRA’s former board directors from the 2000-2001 term. Manuel recently had a story he written many years ago about youth rights published in a collection of stories he wrote. Manuel wrote the story during the fall of his junior year in 2001 while he…
NYRA-Orange County is engaged in a campaign to get both political parties to support a lower voting age. They are starting with the California Democratic Party (CDP), where they have several contacts. As of April 6, the chapter was planning to attend the CDP’s convention in Sacramento in order to make lowering the voting age…
Since February, 2006, Adam King, one of the leaders in NYRA’s chapter formation, has worked extensively to convince the Buncombe County Board of Education to add a student advisor to the board. This position would initially be non-voting, and the student would not be allowed to sit in on closed sessions that deal with personnel…
Last year’s NYRAthon was an overwhelming success. Chapters and individuals engaged in friendly competition to see who could raise the most money, which resulted in a relatively significant influx of money. This money was what allowed NYRA to hire its Executive Director to work full time. If NYRA is ever to become the viable organization…
As reported in my last blog entry, I have been actively working to create a position on my local school board for students. I was expecting to speak at the March board meeting, but I was informed a few days before the meeting that it had been postponed until the meeting on Monday, April 3,…
NYRA just released a fascinating new study that Mike Males put together that makes a very convincing case that a large part of the reason for high traffic deaths among teens is not simply due to their age, but because of their poverty level. This is an angle of the issue that to my knowledge…
I’m probably grossly taking this guy’s comment the wrong way, but either way, I’m tired, so it got me going. On a message board I frequent, this guy talked about stuff that annoys him at the movie theatre. Light hearted enough, as his posts usually are. Among his complaints, however, was a remark about how…
The National Youth Rights Association (NYRA), in cooperation with Dr. Mike Males at UC Santa Cruz, has released a new study concerning teenaged drivers that disputes the notion that teens are reckless killers behind the wheel. The study shows that the largest risk factor for driving is poverty, not age. They hope that the study…
During this semester, I am taking the honors-level version of a state-mandated civics and economics class at my school. The class is quite interesting, and it involves a lot of open dicussion and thought. On Tuesday, the teacher assigned a fun project in which we were to write a mock state referendum concerning a state…
I came across this news story over on Yahoo just a little bit ago. I have posted it in the Current Events forum as well. Are these people who study teens a broken record or what? Teens don’t get enough sleep. Teens aren’t taking good enough care of themselves. It goes on and on. And…
