Today’s Students, Tomorrow’s America Initiative Overview

Today’s Students, Tomorrow’s America [TSTA] is a small 501(c)(3) foundation whose stellar National Honorary Advisory Committee is chaired by Representative Jamie Raskin. Our Initiative aims to ensure that today’s students do not perpetuate the disinformation and divisiveness now threatening our democracy in tomorrow’s America.

The TSTA Initiative focuses on an overlooked segment of our population vital to the preservation of the U.S.Constitution and Bill of Rights. With little, if any, opportunity to question for themselves the issues threatening our freedoms, many students, in middle school through high school, will be imprinted with distorted views of family, peers, and immediate influencers or remain as passive recipients of malignant propaganda.

Deprived of civics education in most schools today, these students have neither the tools and information nor experience to discern truth in reporting from malicious misinformation. Even if the courts and election results resolve certain issues, disinformation will continue to metastasize among the uneducated and uninformed.

In order to redress these issues, TSTA will launch a national essay competition in the fall of 2024 motivating students across the country - including those from historically marginalized communities - to begin the process of becoming informed, voting-age citizens. An extensive, in-depth public awareness campaign and generous cash competition awards are designed to attract even the most reluctant and/or uninterested. Student Essay Awards: Grades 6-8: 1st place, $15,000; 2nd place, $10,000; 3rd place, $5,000; Grades 9-12: 1st place, $20,000; 2nd place, $15,000; 3rd place, $10,000

Essayists will be asked (1) to consider for themselves the freedoms guaranteed to each of them by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights and (2) to submit an essay on how their own everyday lives are affected by and/or would be impacted by the erosion of those rights. The National Student Essay Competition, “Why Democracy Matters,” for students grades six through twelve will mark the first phase of the Today's Students, Tomorrow's America Initiative. Phase two will invite teachers to design innovative course curricula and Phase Three will invite administrators to design school-wide curriculum. All phases will have the same theme in an essay competition format.