[COMM-ORG] New book on education organizing

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

From:     Warren, Mark R. <mark_warren at gse.harvard.edu>

 

Dear friends,

I'm pleased to announce the publication of A Match On Dry Grass:
Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform. The book,
researched and written collectively by my colleagues and me, is
available from Oxford University Press, as well as Amazon. You can learn
more about the book at its website: http://matchondrygrass.org.

 

To get updates on the book events, as well as our March, 2012 conference
at the Harvard Graduate School of Education:

    Like us on facebook: http://facebook.com/matchondrygrass
    Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/matchondrygrass
    Email us to join our mailing list: info at matchondrygrass.org

If you are interested in adopting this book for a course or reviewing it
for a journal, magazine, or newspaper, please contact Jennifer Bernard
at Jennifer.Bernard at oup.com or (212) 726 6067 to receive a review copy.

 

More information about the book follows.

Thanks,

Mark Warren

 

A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform
by Mark Warren, Karen Mapp, and the Community Organizing and School
Reform Project

The persistent failure of public schooling in low-income communities
constitutes one of our nation's most pressing civil rights and social
justice issues. Many school reformers recognize that poverty, racism,
and a lack of power held by these communities undermine children's
education and development, but few know what to do about it. A Match on
Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform argues
that community organizing represents a fresh and promising approach to
school reform as part of a broader agenda to build power for low-income
communities and address the profound social inequalities that affect the
education of children.

Based on a comprehensive national study, the book presents rich and
compelling case studies of prominent organizing efforts in Chicago, New
York City, Los Angeles, Denver, San Jose, and the Mississippi Delta. The
authors show how organizing groups build the participation and
leadership of parents and students so they can become powerful actors in
school improvement efforts. They also identify promising ways to
overcome divisions and create the collaborations between educators and
community residents required for deep and sustainable school reform.
Identifying the key processes that create strong connections between
schools and communities, Warren, Mapp, and their collaborators show how
community organizing builds powerful relationships that lead to the
transformational change necessary to advance educational equity and a
robust democracy.

Reviews

"Civil rights activists in the 1960s insisted in the face of terror and
death that national citizenship granted in the 14th Amendment meant
something. That seminal work inspired organizing groups, active agents
in an historic and on-going process, to bond with and bridge across 
racial, faith, gender, immigrant, and youth communities to reshape the
narrative about the promise of citizenship. A Match on Dry Grass draws
on these organizing traditions in the work to right 'the wrong this day
done' in the nation's public schools. All of us doing that work will
benefit from reading this book."
--- Robert Moses, Founder of the Algebra Project

"This is an important book for anyone interested in fundamental and
sustainable school reform. Community organizing as described in A Match
on Dry Grass creates new relationships, new community leadership, and
new political power focused on doing what is right for kids. These are
potent sources of support for true systemic change and an essential
dimension to transforming our schools for the long haul."
--- Andres A. Alonso, Chief Executive Officer, Baltimore City Public Schools

"In a context of top-down school reform preoccupied with changing
administrative policies, the stories of bottom-up, community organizing
initiatives in A Match on Dry Grass read like a breath of fresh air. Who
better to spearhead educational reform than the young people, parents,
teachers, and neighborhood residents who are committed to bringing about
change in their communities? Simultaneously analytical yet full of
practical organizing techniques, this important volume offers a
provocative mosaic of not only what is possible, but what people are
actually doing. A Match on Dry Grass's on-the-ground view of community
organizing for school reform is must reading for those who see how
important quality public education is for building a strong democracy."
--- Patricia Hill Collins, Distinguished University Professor,
University of Maryland

"For too long we have been waiting for Presidents, Governors and other
self-declared superheroes to save our schools while overlooking the
power and potential of local communities. This detailed study on
community organizing for educational change in school districts and
communities throughout the United States serves as a poignant lesson to
those who are genuinely concerned about promoting educational change and
a powerful reminder of what is possible when those with the most at
stake take action to compel schools to improve."
--- Pedro A. Noguera, Professor of Education, New York University

"A Match on Dry Grass locates the problems of public education as
residing squarely in unequal power relations in a socially and
economically stratified society. The diverse and engaging accounts of
successful organizing efforts show that relational power develops where
community organizing becomes a way of life without which sustained
progressive educational change is neither possible nor desirable. This
book is a treasure that I plan to reference again and again."
--- Angela Valenzuela, Professor of Educational Policy and Planning,
University of Texas-Austin, and author of Subtractive Schooling and
Leaving Children Behind