School district-wide programs, especially those coming out of an under-funded school system that educates an immensely diverse group of students — and future citizens — are not always perfect. Such is the dilemma with the annual YouthVote, a mock election for San Francisco Unified School District high school students that is funded by the SF Youth Empowerment Fund with the intention “to make elections and governance relevant and accountable to young people,” according to the YEF’s YouthVote website. And when our school does nothing to mitigate program shortcomings, instead operating in a way as to accentuate them, it undoes much of the potential.

Each fall semester, the YouthVote information booklets and ballots are distributed to roughly 16,000 SFUSD students. Students are asked to complete the ballot by voting for candidates running for political office, as well as propositions in the upcoming municipal elections, as if they were registered voters. The results are tabulated, catalogued and presented to the schools themselves, as well as to “various government agencies, community organizations and school sites,” who use the data to “inform their work,” according to the website.

In theory, it all sounds like a good idea: preparing youth today for civic engagement tomorrow. But the organizers of YouthVote and the school itself are not executing the program so that it provides the maximum benefit to students and achieves YouthVote’s goals.

The issue is simple; in my experience, a majority of Lowell students, (including myself, before I reported on the budget) are too unaware for a thoughtful vote. They need to learn about the intricacies of the city bureaucracy and current city economics to make informed decisions on the ballot measures and candidates up for election. And neither the YouthVote booklet nor the teachers of the classes in which YouthVote surveys are given are doing enough to mitigate that deficiency in knowledge.

This year, the YouthVote booklet asked students about Proposition B. If it is approved, the city will issue a $248 million bond to repave many of San Francisco’s roads as well as seismically upgrade bridges, tunnels and stairways. The prospect of pothole-free bike lanes will surely garner favor among the youth community, but do students understand the fiscal impact of a bond? Or is this like giving an unemployed 18-year-old a credit card application? Unfortunately, in order to make truly informed decisions, student voters require more information on the city’s budget, and how a yes or no decision on the bond, would affect the financial health of the city as a whole. Instead of including this key information, the handbook simply states, rather obviously, that a yes would entail voter approval of the bonds and a no would not.

However, the larger picture is that only so many dollars exist for spending in San Francisco, and while voting for Proposition B does not preclude the issuance of other bonds to pay for different needs, the city can only go so far into debt and still ask its citizens to approve further spending. So in reality, voting for the proposition might affect whether or not other public initiatives will receive funding, and in our current economy, students who comprehend this might not feel that the spending on roads is justified. Yet this analysis of the impact of the bond decision is not explained in the YouthVote booklet, and many classes have not incorporated a discussion into the process. “It felt really rushed. In my class everyone ended up just scribbling down their answers because we had to turn it in,” junior Kiki Cooney said.

The booklet’s section on the mayoral, district attorney and county sheriff candidates also provides only a basic overview of the candidates and their priorities, information that needs to be built on during class discussion, which may or may not happen. In the preparatory materials, students were provided with something on which to base their votes. All of the candidates listed their top three priorities for S.F. youth; while more information from a questionnaire was included for those running for mayor; and the district attorney and county sheriff candidates submitted a 200-word statement. This basic information about the candidates does go beyond a mere litany of biographical details, however students will be unable to make decisions about the candidate platforms in their entirety, because the booklets only provide their stances on a few choice youth issues. Students are affected by much more than stereotypical youth issues. Candidates’ opinions on city-wide issues that also have an impact on young people, like budget cuts and public transit cut-backs, should be included in the profiles as well.

Another issue with YouthVote is the school’s attitude toward the voting. Here at Lowell, we operate on a tight schedule, with teachers working frantically to cram the curriculum into our ever-shortening school year. As a result, activities that aren’t directly related to fulfilling the state standards and preparing students for end-of-the-year testing often fall by the wayside. YouthVote is therefore ushered in and out with little, if any, school buzz. Busy students take a few moments to review the candidates and propositions ¬— conferring with their friends to see if they are in congruence with popular opinion — before filling in the arrows.

For Lowell sophomores, the process is even more hurried, because without a required history class, they are given their YouthVote booklets in registry over two days, where they have only a combined 30 minutes to read all the text and formulate their thoughts.

Here the irony of the way the school administers YouthVote is apparent. Despite the program’s aim to educate students about democracy so that they are more inclined to have an impact as adults, our practice teaches them that it is okay to vote without doing their homework. Worse, judging from the experiences of both my friends and myself with the YouthVote process, it teaches them that voting is about aligning with popular opinion.

Despite these shortcomings, I vote against eliminating YouthVote — it is a worthwhile idea that has had its usefulness diminished and simply requires better execution to become the educational experience for students that it intends to be. Although the booklets themselves need expansion, the biggest change needs to come from our school. Despite our frenetic schedule, educators should schedule a couple of days for real discussion of the YouthVote topics, where classes would examine the pros and cons of eachproposition and analyze each candidate’s voting history, as well as political affiliations, in order to base votes on comprehensive and unbiased information. Perhaps discussions like this are taking place at other schools, but they certainly are not at ours. Until both the YouthVote booklets and social studies classes make up for the knowledge deficiency that is present in the current program, the votes (or at least those from Lowell) cannot be considered accurate, and should not be reviewed by any outside organizations.

Keeping the school’s social studies classes on track to finish the year with students fully prepared for testing is important, but an authentic experience of citizenry enhances textbook learning. Taking advantage of the opportunity that YouthVote provides by compensating for the areas where the booklets falter would teach students valuable lessons about their civic duty as educated voters. Surely these democratic fundamentals that make our country great are worth more than a few extra points on a standardized test.

A version of this article first appeared in the Nov. 4, 2011 print edition of The Lowell.

Illustrations by Vivian Tong.