New Report: Community Organizing Missing Piece in Education Reform Puzzle

Research States Connection to Community Necessary to Sustain Results

QUINCY, Mass., Jan. 26, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- To improve prospects for the future of both New England and the nation as a whole, the number of people who obtain the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in postsecondary education, work and life must increase dramatically. Many education reform efforts that attempt to achieve this goal through the development of new models of learning often find it difficult to maintain momentum.  According to new research synthesized by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform (AISR) at Brown University for the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, community organizing can offer a much-needed and often-ignored component to education reform efforts and can help ensure long-term sustainability of school and district improvement.

The new report, entitled The Strengths & Challenges of Community Organizing as an Education Reform Strategy, examines the growing body of existing literature on community organizing for school reform, including individual case studies, regional and national scans of the field, investigations of why reform efforts matter, and a large study documenting the impact of community organizing on education policy, school capacity and student educational outcomes across organizations.

The Foundation has made community organizing an integral part of its District Level Systems Change (DLSC) initiative. In the initiative – for which planning grant recipients were announced on January 11th, 2011 – district-level reform efforts must include community partners in the design, development and implementation of Student-Centered Learning approaches for secondary schools.  

The Foundation commissioned the report with AISR in order to provide DLSC grant recipients, community-based organizations, other funders, and policy-makers with user-friendly information about the field of community organizing and engagement and its presence in New England.  The Foundation is also releasing an executive summary of the new report as well as a directory of community organizations in New England that are working for education reform.  AISR is providing technical assistance to the DLSC grant recipients in their community organizing efforts.

All three documents are available on both the Nellie Mae Education Foundation's Web site and AISR's Web site.

According to researchers behind the report, the goal of community organizing for education reform is to leverage the collective power of parents, youth, community residents and/or institutions to alter longstanding power relationships and policies that produce failing schools in underserved communities. Community organizing has the potential to challenge the patterns of inequality that are often part of the rules and laws that guide schools, as well as the relationships among stakeholders that dictate how a reform is adopted and implemented.  

"Current federal policies encourage states to create standards and assessments to measure student learning, and create a series of rewards and sanctions for schools that fail to show growth," explained co-authors Michelle Renee, Ph.D., and Sara McAlister, researchers at the AISR.  "Although this approach focuses on holding students accountable for learning and teachers for teaching, it does not address the lack of resources or the conditions students need in order to learn."  

The authors conclude that while meaningful community organizing and engagement is challenging, the efforts pay dividends over the long haul. Community organizing increases democratic participation, brings new and innovative ideas into the reform process, and helps build a community's capacity to sustain high-quality schools.

For example, Providence-based Youth 4 Change (Y4C) works as part of a national coalition to implement a "Student Bill of Rights."  Y4C students recently used the Bill of Rights framework to organize a debate between city mayoral candidates.  After these young people presented a clear policy idea to the candidates and the public, they succeeded in shifting the focus of the overall mayoral debate to the ideas critical to themselves and their peers.

"At the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, we believe that students, parents, and civic and community leaders must be deeply involved with educators in order to effect sustained change," said Mary Sylvia Harrison, Vice President of Programs for the Foundation.  "This research helps to reinforce that notion and can serve as a resource for others who are working to lead significant education reform efforts."

"The importance of the role of community-based organizations and their constituents in sustaining the reforms that serve their community is often grossly underplayed" added Warren Simmons, Ph.D., Executive Director of AISR.   "By investing in a more community-centered approach to education reform, philanthropy can increase the impact of reforms it espouses, and create results that are more robust and sustainable." 

About the Nellie Mae Education Foundation

The Nellie Mae Education Foundation is the largest charitable organization in New England that focuses exclusively on education. The Foundation supports the promotion and integration of student-centered approaches to learning at the middle and high school levels across New England. To elevate student-centered approaches, the Foundation utilizes a three-part strategy that focuses on: developing and enhancing models of practice; reshaping education policies; and increasing public understanding and demand for high quality educational experiences. The Foundation's new initiative areas are: District Level Systems Change; State Level Systems Change; Research and Development; and Public Understanding. Since 1998, the Foundation has distributed over $123 million in grants. For more information, visit www.nmefdn.org.

About the AISR

The Annenberg Institute for School Reform was established at Brown University in 1993 as the Coalition of Essential Schools and renamed later that year in honor of major support received from the Annenberg Foundation as part of Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg's "Challenge to the Nation" to improve public schools.  The Institute's mission is to develop, share, and act on knowledge that improves the conditions and outcomes of public schooling in America, especially in urban communities.  Its primary goal is to promote the transformation of school districts and their communities into "smart education systems" that achieve excellence and equity at scale by combining high-functioning and effective school districts with a comprehensive web of opportunities and supports for children and families.   For more information, visit www.annenberginstitute.org.

SOURCE Nellie Mae Education Foundation

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