COMM-ORG

• ACORN Better Schools project.  This national organizing network has several projects around school improvement.
• Alliance for Quality Education. A New York State based organization that works with all stakeholders but emphasizes the involvement of parents and youth, and that combines leadership development, community organizing, electronic activism, extensive media relations, policy work, and lobbying within a cohesive campaign for fundamental education reform.  Particularly involved in issues related to equity in public funding.
• Boston Parent Organizing Network is a citywide initiative to organize parents and communities as advocates for the improvement of the Boston Public Schools.
• Center on School Family and Community Partnerships.  Located at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the mission of this Center is to conduct and disseminate research, programs, and policy analyses that produce new and useful knowledge and practices that help parents, educators, and members of communities work together to improve schools, strengthen families, and enhance student learning and development.
• Critical Exposure helps students and organizations advocate more effectively for excellence and equity in public education by empowering young people to develop skills as documentary photographers and advocates,
• FINE (Family Involvement Network of Educators).  A national network of over 8,000 people who are interested in promoting strong partnerships between children's educators, their families, and their communities.
• Industrial Areas Foundation, Alliance Schools Project. IAF affiliates in Texas invented and implemented the Alliance School concept. This approach to engaging parents, teachers, community leaders, and administrators in an effort to improve student performance and connect the local school more constructively to the surrounding community is now widely practiced in many school districts across the southwest and west.
• Institute for Education and Social Policy.  Based at New York University, this institute works on many areas of education policy, including community organizing about education issues.
• Institute for Responsive Education. Located in Boston, the Institute for Responsive Education (IRE) is a research, policy, and advocacy organization that encourages and supports school, family, and community partnership to enable high quality educational opportunities for all children.  Also includes the Parent Leadership Exchange, which reaches out to parent leaders in three New England states in an effort to foster school, family, and community partnership and expand networking opportunities while building leadership skills; and the Boston Parent Organizing Network, which organizes a diverse group of parents, students, families and community members to advocate and support the improvement of the Boston Public Schools.
• Logan Square Neighborhood Association.  Based in Chicago, this is a nationally recognized model of successful collaboration between a community organization and public schools, creating a community-centered school that serves all families.  
• Mothers on the Move.  A New York City community based organization that began by organizing around school issues and has now branched out into other issues.
• National Center for Schools and Communities.  Located at Fordham University, this center supports and reinforces grassroots organizing to win better public schools in low-income communities and communities of color.
• Oakland Community Organizations.  This community based organization, located in Oakland, CA, has opened many small schools in Oakland through its New Small Autonomous Schools Movement.  These schools are based on the vision that teachers, parents and students are all essential partners in creating and sustaining small schools in which all children will be challenged to do their best.  
• Organizing for Educational Excellence Institute.  A joint project of ACORN and PICO, The purpose of the institute is to equip parents and community leaders with the skills and knowledge to insure that all children in our communities receive high quality instruction.  The institute brings parent and community leaders together with educators and policy makers to share knowledge about improving academic instruction in schools serving low-income children.  
• Parents for Public Schools. A national organization of community-based chapters that aims to help public schools attract all families in a community by making sure all schools effectively serve all children.
• People for Education is a parent-led organization, working to improve public education in Ontario's English, Catholic and French schools.
• PICO Good Schools Project.  PICO is a national faith-based organizing network; working towards better schools for all is one of their main projects.
• Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.  A non-partisan, non-profit, independent citizens group working to improve education in Kentucky that sponsors the Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership, which offers a variety of programs aimed at bringing together parents, teachers, community members, and school administrators, for training, information, and experiences which help them work as partners to raise student achievement.
• Research for Action.  This Philadelphia institute seeks to improve the education opportunities and outcomes of urban youth by strengthening public schools and enriching the civic and community dialogue about public education.

This page produced by Carl Egner