Citizen of the Week: Thomas Quinn

Citizen of the Week: Thomas Quinn

The Cardinal Loftier Schoolhouse social studies instructor is on a mission to change the globe outside his classroom—by registering to vote every eligible high schooler in the city

Sep. 12, 2018

Thomas Quinn first pulled an election lever in 1988, when he was an 18-twelvemonth-old freshman at Temple University—the outset fourth dimension he was eligible to vote. Information technology was not a particularly memorable moment for him, and it was not a peculiarly successful one either: A registered Democrat, Quinn bandage his vote for Jesse Jackson, who went on to lose the primary.

But the voting stuck. And now Quinn, the chair of Key High Schoolhouse'south social studies department, is leading a citywide endeavor to pass on the importance of voting to a new generation of 18-twelvemonth-olds.

Through the Caucus of Working Educators—an activist coalition inside the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers—Quinn is directing Philly Youth Vote , an endeavor to register every eligible loftier school senior in the city. So far, the group has recruited teachers in nearly 35 district schools who take volunteered to get registration information and forms into the hands of any of the 12,000 seniors who will exist xviii on Nov 6th. (Some other eleven schools still need leaders.)

"Voting is something students are aware that they should do," Quinn says. "But I go to the polls, and it's almost all old people, with very few younger people. What is it that'southward stopping them? As teachers we're in a perfect position to attain kids, when they're learning about regime, about to go to college or to work, and are showtime eligible to vote."

Quinn has authored a step by step guide for the teachers, which includes instructions on how to sort students by birthdate to find those to target; how to download paper registration forms; and how to start a classroom conversation around voting. He will also send to any teacher a stack of registration forms through the Schoolhouse Commune's internal postal service. Quinn's efforts are aimed at district high schools, but he hopes to raise interest among charters and other schools in the city, every bit well. "The process is not super complicated, merely it'south just complicated enough that we're trying to lay it out to make as simple as possible for teachers," Quinn says.

"Part of what I teach is that politics isn't just learning the nuts and bolts of the Constitution," Quinn says. "It'southward to get in work for you and your community and your interests. Borough appointment, and citizenship at a very basic level, is incredibly important."

Quinn'southward projection—which he stresses is non-partisan—is part of a larger effort locally and nationally to get more young people registered and engaged in the political process, every bit a way to eternalize our lackluster voter turnout. During the 2022 election, 64 percent of eligible voters in Philadelphia went to the polls, a lower number than in the previous two Presidential races. Meanwhile, in the last Mayoral election in 2015, but 24 pct of eligible Philadelphians cast a election. And final November, turnout was simply over twenty percentage in the election that decided the city's new District Attorney.

But something else happened final twelvemonth, likewise: Turnout for the May primary amidst voters aged 18 to 35 increased by 279 percentage over the last DA's primary in 2013; the 33,000 votes among Millennials fabricated up about 19 percent of the total vote. And that was earlier the shooting at a loftier schoolhouse in Parkland, Florida, that thrust young people—and their votes—into the national political conversations. Since and so, a study found that Pennsylvania leads the nation in registration among citizens aged 18 to 29. If at that place is a moment for Philly Youth Vote—or, for Vote That Jawn , a youth voter project The Citizen is partnering on—it is at present.

"Part of what I teach is that politics isn't merely learning the nuts and bolts of the Constitution," Quinn says. "It'south to make information technology work for y'all and your community and your interests. Civic engagement, and citizenship at a very basic level, is incredibly important."

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Quinn is also helping to coordinate get out the vote efforts past outside organizations like Commission of Seventy and the City Commissioners, to effort to brand certain every school has some kind of consequence that promotes voting. And he has taken to sending out ideas to his colleagues that he has found in the procedure of organizing Philly Youth Vote: At Bodine High Schoolhouse for International Affairs, for example, students are called to the office on their 18th birthday, where—instead of getting in trouble—they are congratulated and handed a registration form.

As a politics and U.S. regime teacher—for the last 10 years at Cardinal—Quinn is uniquely poised to push the message of voting to his students. But fifty-fifty he has plant himself in past years scrambling at the last infinitesimal to talk near the importance of registering to vote, until right before the deadline. This year is different in part because he is dissimilar.

Turnout for the May primary among voters aged 18 to 35 increased by 279 percent over the concluding DA'southward primary. And Pennsylvania leads the nation in registration amongst citizens aged 18 to 29. If in that location is a moment for Philly Youth Vote—or for Vote That Jawn—information technology is now.

Growing up in Lancaster County, Quinn says his parents voted "similar how they went to church on the holidays"—by and large during Presidential races. But they didn't talk near it much. Instead, Quinn first became politicized through 80s punk rock, music that—equally he puts information technology—was not always articulate, but was always compelling.

Still, it wasn't until the ballot of President Trump in 2022 that Quinn felt fatigued to become more politically involved himself. That'due south when the Caucus of Working Educators urged its members to run for commission person, the lowest elected office in the city, to aid inform their ward'southward endorsements and advocacy efforts. Quinn ran a write-in campaign to win a spot this past May on his East Mt. Blusterous Democratic Commission, and is at present part of a group aiming to get-go a citywide education caucus of committee people.

"The teachers union is the largest union in the city, merely other unions had a much larger presence in wards," Quinn says. "Nosotros need to have a stronger voice, to abet for public education bug."

Philly Youth Vote is an extension of that aforementioned inkling, but aimed at those even more affected by public education in the urban center: The students.

"This is important especially in Philadelphia, where black and chocolate-brown students make up virtually of the District, and are poorly served by schools, funding mechanisms and infrastructures in the community," he says. "I desire students to know that all the things they care about are afflicted by the political system in their lives. And voting is a huge fashion to impact the power players, and people who are making the decisions."

Photo by Elena Paz Quinn Camacho

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/citizen-of-the-week-thomas-quinn/

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