Outside In: Communities in Action for Education Reform

Abstract

Community organizing for school reform is a growing national phenomenon, as young people, parents, neighborhood residents, and faith-based institutions struggle to improve the quality and equity of public schooling, particularly in urban school districts. Now a decade old, community organizing projects are influencing local public schools in increasingly visible ways—bringing new resources, introducing equity-based policies, and transforming educator conceptions of who they teach and the skills necessary to teach diverse student populations effectively. This article looks at the emerging field of community organizing for school reform in the context of national trends in public education, reviews the characteristics and theoretical underpinnings of the organizing approach, and explores the linkages between research, the teaching profession, and organizing. It identifies three critical questions for educators and researchers, and concludes with a brief discussion of the need for more research on how community-driven reform efforts are helping to improve student learning.

Acknowledgments

The Community Involvement Program, which was initiated in 1995 as part of New York University's Institute for Education and Social Policy, provides strategic support to community organizing groups in New York City and conducts research on school reform organizing nationally. In September 2006, the Community Involvement Program became part of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, at Brown University.

This article draws extensively on two publications, Organizing for School Reform: How communities are finding their voices and reclaiming their public schools (Mediratta, Fruchter, & Lewis, 2002) and Constituents of Change: Community organizations and public education reform (Mediratta, 2004). Both publications are available on-line at: www.annenberginstitute.org.

Kavitha Mediratta is a principal associate at the Community Involvement Program (CIP) of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform.