• American Society of News Editors  The ASNE Youth Journalism Initiative, launched in 2000, provides journalism-related training and resources for teachers and students through its website, SchoolJournalism.org . The initiative also sponsors weekly and monthly journalism contests for students, as well as the Quill and Scroll International Writing and Photo Contest . ASNE’s goal is for every student to learn why news matters and acquire the skills needed to succeed as 21st century citizens.

• ASNE Reynolds High School Journalism Institute The Reynolds High School Journalism Institutes are intensive two-week journalism training programs for secondary-school teachers coordinated by the ASNE Youth Journalism Initiative. The Institutes combine in-depth instruction on journalism skills with hands-on experience in reporting, writing, editing, design, videography, photography, multimedia and online news. Teachers learn how to help students develop news literacy skills and understand their rights and ethical responsibilities as student journalists and citizens. http://www.schooljournalism.org/reynolds-high-school-journalism-institute/

• Center for Scholastic Journalism The Center, located at Kent State University in Ohio, is committed to conducting and collecting the best national and international research on scholastic media and the role it plays in journalism education and citizenship training. The center also provides educational, legal and ethical scholastic resources. http://csjkent.edu

• Columbia Scholastic Press Association Founded in 1925, the association unites student editors and faculty advisers working with them to produce student newspapers, magazines, yearbooks and online media. The association is owned by Columbia University and operated as a program affiliated with its Graduate School of Journalism. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cspa/

• Journalism Education Association The nation’s largest national scholastic journalism organization for teachers and advisers. The organization offers training workshops and conventions, print and online educational and resources, and monitors and defends First Amendment and scholastic press rights issues nationally. http://jea.org http://jeasprc.org http://jeadigitialmedia.org

• National Scholastic Press Association The National Scholastic Press Association provides journalism education training programs, publishes journalism education materials, provides media critique and recognition programs for members, provides information on developments in journalism and student media and provides a forum for members to communicate with others and share their work. Through these activities, NSPA and its divisions promote the standards and ethics of good journalism as accepted and practiced by print, broadcast and electronic media in the United States. NSPA and its divisions also endorse and advocate free expression rights for student media. http://www.studentpress.org

• Quill and Scroll Society Quill and Scroll International Honorary Society for High School Journalists was organized April 10, 1926, at the University of Iowa by renowned pollster George H. Gallup and a group of high school advisers for the purpose of encouraging and recognizing individual student achievement in journalism and academics. The organization provides educational resources, contests and workshops for students and educators. http://www.quillandscroll.org

Internet access and safety
Today’s student journalists must learn to navigate and produce online media. The choice is clear — provide an educational environment in which students learn to use the Internet with adult facilitation, or leave students to educate themselves with no such guidance. Because the First Amendment protects Internet freedoms in much the same way it protects print media, it is essential for administrators to understand the boundaries of the law.

Understanding filters
The Children’s Internet Protection Act mandates filters in public schools, although many administrators are unaware CIPA also allows for their removal in certain situations. Use in journalism programs should be one of those exceptions because filters often block relevant research material and prohibit students from learning online responsibility.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects free speech and press freedom of all Americans, including students in school. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear these rights are not unlimited, it has also affirmed neither “students [nor] teachers shed their Constitutional rights to freedom of expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

In fact, free expression has long been regarded as the foundation of U.S. democracy. Thomas Jefferson perhaps said it best: “Our liberty depends on freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

The first direct experience most Americans have with press freedom, and the censorship that limits it, begins when they are in school working on student media. That’s why journalism educators, judges and First Amendment advocates have urged schools to support and foster student free expression because it is key to persuading young people “that our Constitution is a living reality, not [just] parchment preserved under glass.”