Activism and partnership took the center stage Wednesday evening during White Hat Research and Policy Group’s first educational presentation about their White Papers.
WHRPG is an Arizona progressive think tank that wants to drive conversation about change by breaking down legislation and information for voters to understand.
“We have some organizations that act as think tanks but we don’t have a progressive think tank,” said Damián Preciado, the executive director for WHRPG and vice chair of the Arizona Democratic Party. “In this case, the conversation really focused on private school vouchers and how detrimental they are to the public school system.”
WHRPG put together White Papers, essays that take research on a certain topic and break it down in a way that people can understand. Preciado said by putting together these White Papers, they are able to make the conversation about the backgrounds of legislation.
“It’s a traditional term for when you aggregate information so that it’s more understandable,” he said. “It puts it together into the arguments we need so that we can have a different dialogue around the issues.”
To show the effect of vouchers, students with the Francisco Adame Dance Arts Modeling Talent Academy performed demonstrations and monologues in partnership with Save Our Schools Arizona.
“I thought it was a perfect way to merge multiple worlds together dealing with arts and social activism,” said Marcelino Quiñonez, an acting director at the talent academy. “The idea for some of these scenes came about and then it was just a matter of good old theater practices.”
A total of five students from the academy performed at the event. Two students acted out a scene where a girl is leaving her best friend and moving to a school with an arts program after their school’s program was cut.
Another student performed a monologue where she played a mother concerned about the future of education when the charter school her children went to closed down unexpectedly.
Preciado said by having a theater performance to convey their message against private school vouchers, it conveys a deeper message to audience members while also allowing the students to become more involved and educated about the legislature’s role in shaping their lives.
“I come from a theater background,” said Preciado. “This is an opportunity for the students to carry a message that’s much more meaningful.”
The audience consisted of family members and education activists. Judith Simons, a volunteer with Save Our Schools Arizona and a retired teacher, brought her clipboard with pages for the ‘Outlaw Dirty Money’ petition, a grassroots movement to end anonymous donations to political candidates.
“I’m very concerned at what has been and is now happening with education,” she said. “Ten years from now, you may want a doctor or police officer with a good education. Those people are in school today.”
Preciado said WHRPG plans to continue hosting more White Page presentations to promote more essay topics.
“It’s a very calculated process,” Preciado said. “It’s our job to make (information) digestible through papers because it appeals with a type of demographic, or art because it appeals to that demographic and through all the avenues available to us.”
Contact the reporter at smedwar7@asu.edu.
Sara Edwards was the executive editor of Downtown Devil. She is a graduate student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Sara has additional bylines in Phoenix New Times, West Valley View, L.A. Downtown News and Boardwalk Times.
Sara is also the co-secretary for the Multicultural Student Journalists Coalition.
