faith-based organizing: youth and schools

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

From: "PICO National Network" <news at piconetwork.org>


Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Faith-based organizing for youth: One organization's district
campaign for small schools policy

Oakland Community Organizations (OCO) has worked for over ten
years to improve educational opportunities in low-income
neighborhoods in Oakland, California. The work of thousands of
parent, teacher, youth, and community leaders has resulted in
the formation of nearly fifty new small schools and more than
ten charters, creating settings for individualized learning
environments and the opportunity for quality choices for many of
Oakland's low-income families.

In this article, OCO's executive director, Ron Snyder, outlines
a four-phase organizing process undertaken by OCO, based on a
set of organizing principles that have sustained community-led
education reform despite constant changes in the political and
school district environment:

- the centrality of love (self-interest) as a motivator for
advocacy;
- the importance of quality research and powerful ideas (vision)
as alternatives to the status quo;
- the application of a model that creates a common structure,
language, and experience to sustain leaders;
- the need for institutional and network power to apply
leverage;
- the flexibility to seize opportunity when the window is open;
- and faithfulness to the object of our love: our children.

Read the full article about how OCO is transforming schools in
Oakland at
http://ga3.org/ct/11_svVd1y4cX/

Oakland Community Organizations is a federation of forty
congregations and allied community organizations representing
forty thousand families from East, West, and North Oakland, and
was a founding member of the PICO National Network.
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