Community is the Secret to Public School Reform

Is there one person responsible for education reform or is everyone? If you don't have children, should you be worried about what's happening at the public school around the corner? How can we bring together people in communities who care about their schools with teachers who care about what's happening in the neighborhoods around their schools?

Educators discussed using community organizing as a strategy to build civic participation and power in low-income communities and for change in urban schools at the Thursday, March 9, Askwith Forum, "Community Organizing and School Reform."

"Not all change can happen within four walls. We need to engage the energy and creativity of parents and community leaders who care deeply about the schools their children attend."–Associate Professor Mark Warren

The forum kicked off the third annual National Colloquium on Community Organizing and School Reform. Over 120 people attended the conference, which was held to bring together community organizers, parent leaders, education researchers, and educators to focus on community organizing and school reform in low-income communities.

"I think community organizing has emerged as important force in transforming schools in low-income communities," said Associate Professor Mark Warren. "Not all change can happen within four walls. We need to engage the energy and creativity of parents and community leaders who care deeply about the schools their children attend."

The two-day conference brought together community organizers, scholars, and leaders from across the country to create and examine model initiatives around community building and school renewal.

The Askwith Forum, moderated by Warren, included two speakers: Ernesto Cortés, Jr., director of the Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation, and Professor Jeannie Oakes, director of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education & Access. HGSE Lecturer Karen Mapp, former deputy superintendent of family and community engagement for the Boston Public Schools, served as a respondent.

Cortés pointed out that, as an organizer, his job is about getting all the players to work together, but that, as a father and a Mexican American, he knows the reality of public education. The problem he sees is that there's no "public" in public education. "No one represents the people who go to public schools," he said.

Cortés discussed the importance of bringing groups together to make a difference. "If you don't get all the people involved, if you don't recognize that this is not about someone else's kid, but all of us, then we're lost," Cortés said.

The trouble with school goes beyond just societal constraints, but also into the classroom where standards have made children no longer capable of taking joy in becoming a lifelong learner. "They can take a test, but not read to learn or construct an argument," Cortés said.

"If you don't get all the people involved, if you don't recognize that this is not about someone else's kid, but all of us, then we're lost."–Ernesto Cortés, Jr.

Oakes shifted the focus to how activism can be the driving force behind reform. She argued that change required cultural and political shifts, as well as technical change.

Despite nearly 50 years since desegregation, Los Angeles is still one of the most segregated places in the country, Oakes said. Problems in a majority of Los Angeles schools include issues with curriculum and teachers, as well as overcrowding.

Inner City Struggle, a group formed in 1994 by students to improve the quality of life in Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles, asked for several changes to their schools including college prep and Hispanic history classes, as well as the hiring of more counselors. Oakes said their movement forced an awakening. The group was told that they were not being realistic in their requests, but they persisted by reaching out to outside groups in their communities. In June 2005, the Inner City Struggle heralded their largest victory to date when the school board voted six to one to make college preparatory classes available to all students in 2008 and a requirement for all students by 2012.

"Learning and power must be blended together with everyone in society," Oakes said. By learning about power you can figure out where the power of education lies, discover the power of learning, and learn to be powerful, she said.

"We walk around saying 'NCLB (No Child Left Behind),' when disparities are growing," Oakes said. As inequalities increase, people are looking to education to change the pace.

Oakes said that now is the time to make organizational changes and use promising strategies like making reform part of a public process, engaging those who are most affected, constructing user knowledge, adopting a critical stance, creating new images and understandings, and building power to alter politics.

"Learning and power must be blended together with everyone in society." --Professor Jeannie Oakes

"Every one of us in this room must participate and cultivate this education movement," Mapp said as respondent to the discussion.

Reflecting on the speaker's thoughts, Mapp outlined five ways for audience members to take personal responsibility and contribute to a movement on their own: 1. Start with something personal; 2. Follow a moral compass; 3. Have trust be the core of your relationships; 4. Listen to our students and community and collaborate with them; and 5. Learn power.

"I've been on Appian Way since January and it's too quiet on this street," Mapp said encouraging students to be active and make a difference. "Reflect, go home, and look in the mirror.which piece of this can you pick up. I challenge all of us to do this."

The Askwith Forum served as a jumping point for the conference's focus which included how to build the political will and capacity for change in public schools serving low income communities. Nearly 50 people who attended the conference also attended the forum on Thursday, Warren said. The forum served as the first public event on this subject.

"We felt it was important to give the larger Harvard and Boston community a chance to participate in a national conversation about the potential for linking community organizing and school reform together in a common movement to transform our urban communities," he said.