Parent Power: Education Organizing in NYC, 1995-2010 - Viewer's Guide

7/31/2019 Parent Power: Education Organizing in NYC, 1995-2010 - Viewer's Guide

1/16

Parent Power Viewers Guide 2

Viewers Guide


2/16

3

Written and edited by Norm Fruchter and Orya Hyde-Keller

Designed by Carole Jeung and Haewon Kim

Cover photo by Jason Masten

Interior photos by Jason Matsen and Jose Gonzalez

The Annenberg Institute for School Reform is a national

policy-research and reform-support organization, affiliated

with Brown University, which focuses on improving

conditions and outcomes for all students in urban public

schools, particularly those serving disadvantaged children.

The Institutes vision is the transformation of traditional

school systems into smart education systems that developand integrate high-quality learning opportunities in all areas

of students livesat school, at home, and in the community.

For more information, visit www.annenberginstitute.org.

Produced in collaboration with Active Voice. Special thanks

to Ellen Schneider, founder and executive director, and

Dina de Veer, story and policy coordinator. For more

information on Active Voice, visit www.activevoice.net.

2011 Annenberg Institute for School Reform


3/16

When I think of things around me, it makes me sad, and I want to cry.

But then I stop, and it gets me angry, and thats what brings about the change.

Carol Boyd, Parent Leader

Viewers Guide


4/16

3 A Message from the Filmmakers

4 New York City Parent Organizing Strategies

4 Engage key neighborhood organizations

5 Effectively utilize research and data

6 Appropriately navigate the collaboration/confrontation dynamic

7 Build local and citywide coalitions

8 Build effective organizational structures and cultures

9 Develop relationships with the teachers union

10 Enlist intermediary support

11 Frequently Asked Questions

13 About the Center for Education Organizing

Table of Contents


5/16


A Message from the FilmmakersParent Powerchronicles fifteen years of parent organizing to improve public schools

across New York City. These efforts were supported by organizers and researchers from the

Annenberg Institute for School Reforms Community Organizing and Engagement division,1

who together with New York City parent leaders created this film. The organizing portrayed

in Parent Poweris motivated by the following beliefs:

that preserving and strengthening public education is essential to making our nation

more equitable and democratic;

that the communities most affected by the current economic downturnlow-income

and working-class urban neighborhoodsalso consistently suffer the chronic failures

of public education; and

that these communities, and the teachers who work in their schools, are the

constituencies with the potential power to demand, support, and sustain the scale

of education reform necessary to effectively address these challenges.

This Viewers Guide is designed to enhance your use of Parent Powerin your education

organizing, whether you employ the film for large-scale inspirational screenings, in strategy

sessions with your organizers and leaders, as an introduction to education organizing when

you are initiating new efforts, or in whatever other ways you find the film useful. The first

section on New York City organizing strategies describes the approaches that guided successful

parent organizing in New York City and is accompanied by key questions to consider when

formulating your own organizing strategies and goals. The next section answers frequently

asked questions that may arise when you screen the film. The final section presents information

about the Center for Education Organizing, a new unit of the Annenberg Institute for School

Reform that encourages, supports, and links education organizers across the nation.

For help in planning an effective small-group or community screening, please see our screening

toolkit, which you can download at: www.annenberginstitute.org/parentpower.

We made Parent Powerto provide an inspiring example of successful education organizing.

We hope this guide will help you generate actionable discussion about Parent Power

and build campaigns that improve the schools serving your neighborhoods and your children.

Frequently Used Acronyms in

Parent Power

PAC: Parent Action Committee

CEJ: The New York City Coalition

for Educational Justice

NSA: New Settlement Apartments

CC9: Community Collaborativeto Improve District 9 Schools

PS 64: Public School 64

IESP: New York University Institute

for Education and Social Policy, the

intermediary that initially supported

the organizing the film chronicles.

AISR: The Annenberg Institute for School

Reform at Brown University, a national

policy-research and reform support

organization.

CO&E: Annenberg Institute for SchoolReforms Community Organizing and

Engagement division, the group that

replaced IESP and provided much

of the support for the organizing the

film portrays.

1The organizing staff was originally part of the New York University Institute for Education and Social Policy,

but disaffiliated from NYU in 2006 and joined the Annenberg Institute for School Reform.


6/16

4

What is a community-based

organization (CBO)?

These nonprofits provide services and

supports for local neighborhoods. They

are usually directed by local activists and

guided by a board of local residents. Funding

for CBO work comes from a variety of city,

state, and federal grants, and many CBOs

have developed fund-raising strategies to

secure significant nonprofit and private

donations as well. CBOs support their

neighborhoods by developing, rehabilitating,

and managing local affordable housing;

implementing neighborhood redevelopment

projects; offering health services,

employment counseling, youth recreation,

and educational and social programs for

young people, including after-school

programs; and organizing residents to

improve a wide range of local conditions.

Engage key neighborhood organizations

I met an organizer from the New Settlement Apartments Parent Action

Committee who, I recall, just had pit bull persistence. She would not

go away. You need to come to this meeting. We need your input.

This affects you. So, finally, I went. And the rest has been history.


Successful parent organizing depends on mobilizing local support for schooling improvement.

The organizing chronicled in Parent Powerbegan with efforts to encourage local community-

based organizations (CBOs) to take on education organizing as part of their neighborhood work

(see sidebar for more on CBOs). In parent organizing efforts in other cities, that local base may

be religious congregations or neighborhood action groups supported by dues-paying residents.

Essentially, all organizing begins with targeting and attempting to mobilize specific local

constituencies.

There were several reasons why CBOs were appropriate organizations to spur education reform

in New York City. Because CBOs are politically and formally independent of local school systems

and city governments, they can hire and fund organizers to help parents improve their local

schools without facing the constraining pressures that principals and administrators often exerton parent-teacher associations. Moreover, many CBOs have long reputations for neighborhood

service; webs of relationships with community residents, leaders, and elected officials; and

networks of connection with other neighborhood institutions to draw on. They also have an

existing infrastructureoffices, meeting spaces, telephones, and computerswhich can help

to enable and support parent organizing.

Therefore, the New York City organizing strategy focused on convincing local CBOs, such as

the New Settlement Apartments, to undertake education organizing to improve their local

schools as a necessary component of their commitments to revitalizing their neighborhoods.

New Settlement Apartments vision, for example, was not simply to rebuild Mt. Edens destroyed

housing, but to restore the social fabric of the neighborhood. Organizing for high-quality

neighborhood schools fit well with this mission.

KEY QUESTIONS

Can you identify CBOs or other civic or service groups in your neighborhoods that

might be prepared to take on education organizing?

How can you identify groups you dont already know about that might support

education organizing?

1

New York City Parent Organizing Strategies

Seven key strategies guided the New York City education organizing

chronicled in Parent Power. While education organizing in your communities

will often confront unique situations that require different approaches,

the following strategies employed in New York City may prove helpful to you.

Ana Maria Archila, Co-director,

Make the Road

Ana Maria founded and led the Latin

American Integration Center for many

years until it merged with Make the Road,

a tri-borough immigrant organizing and

service center.

The organizations that came together to

create CEJ had real alignment in terms of

who should be the drivers of change in

communities: ordinary people who know

the real problems and ordinary people who

actually have ideas about what the solutions

should look like.


7/16


8/16

6

Appropriately manage the collaboration/

confrontation dynamic

Public school officials took over our meeting. And when they took

over our meeting, it no longer became our meeting. It became

their meeting. They made us out to be bad parents. And I think that

was a turning point for me, because after that, I vowed that I was

going to learn as much as I can.

Cynthia Cummings, PAC Leader

Finding the appropriate balance between confrontational and collaborative strategies bedevils

many education organizing groups. Directly confronting school officials with parent demands

for schooling improvement is often necessary but can also so antagonize the targeted

administrators that they refuse to engage. Similarly, collaboration between organized parent

groups and school officials is critical to schooling improvement but can easily become

administration controlled and carried out for forms sake if the threat of confrontation

is not maintained. Figuring out when and how to collaborate and when and how to confront

proved crucial to the organizing efforts in New York City.

The PAC began its organizing hoping to collaborate with local school officials. When the PAC

presented their research findings to the PS 64 principal and the local superintendent, for

example, members were expecting an acknowledgement of the schools problems and an

agreement to work together to improve the schools outcomes. Instead the PACs concerns

were dismissed by the principal and the local districts superintendent. This dismissal initially

intimidated the PAC, but the parents regrouped and escalated their strategyfrom efforts at

collaboration to direct and dramatic confrontation. The PAC staged demonstrations at district

school board meetings, used their research findings to highlight PS 64s failure and demand

improvement, engaged local and citywide media to amplify their message, and ultimately took

their demands to the citywide school board and the citys schools chancellor. The PACs strategic

escalation succeeded in replacing PS 64s principal and projecting the need to improve thedistricts struggling schools onto a citywide school reform agenda. In this case, confrontation

proved necessary when collaboration was rejected by schooling administrators.

But collaboration can often yield successful outcomes when contending parties are willing to

engage. CC9s founding groups stressed the importance of collaborating not only with local

schools and school districts, but also with the citywide school system leadership and the

teachers union. As the film shows, those collaborations produced the Lead Teacher Program

as a pilot in ten District 9 schools. Similarly, CEJ worked hard to develop collaborations with

the school systems middle grades improvement efforts.

KEY QUESTIONS

Has your group encountered situations in which youve struggled to manage the

collaboration/confrontation dynamic? What did you do? What was the result?

Are there ways you can manage this dynamic more effectively or differently in

the future?

3

Zakiyah Ansari, Parent Leader

Zakiyah lives in Brooklyns East Flatbush

neighborhood, and her eight children allattend or attended the citys public schools.

She helped found both the Brooklyn

Education Collaborative and CEJ and

currently works as an organizer for CEJ

and the Alliance for Quality Education.

These are our kids. You cant keep telling us

you cant do things. Were not going to take

it anymore. We know that it can be done.

We know its done in other schools. Why

isnt it done in our communities?


9/16


Build local and citywide coalitions

A bunch of parents limited to one school district was not enough

if we were going to truly have a lasting impact on reforming and

transforming public education in the city of New York, we were going

to have to get more like-minded people onboard with us.


Local, districtwide, and eventually citywide coalitions built by neighborhood groups often prove

necessary to build the scale of parent power required to leverage significant reform. New York

City school systems scale and complexity, with more than a million students in 1,600 schools,

presents an enormous challenge to local education organizing. The PAC quickly discovered

that the New York City schools chancellorthe systems superintendenthad the power to

remove ineffective principals and could intervene to improve failing districts. But the PAC also

discovered that a parent organizing group focused on one neighborhood elementary school could

not mobilize sufficient power to influence the actions of district- or systemwide administrators.

Because the PAC was unable to develop sufficient power to win its demands for local school

improvement, the group decided to develop a larger effort to advance its demands and helped

to form CC9the Community Collaborative to Improve District 9 Schools. Similarly, when

CC9s efforts failed to maintain community participation in the expansion of the Lead Teacher

Program, the coalition decided to form a citywide organization, the New York City Coalition for

Educational Justice, or CEJ, to leverage the organizing power of groups across four of the citys

five boroughs.

KEY QUESTIONS

Do your education organizing groups have sufficient power to change citywide

education policies or influence citywide administrators to make the improvements

your neighborhood schools need?

If not, could similar organizing groups across your city collaborate to develop more

powerful coalitions?

Jack Doyle, Executive Director,

New Settlement Apartments

Jack has headed NSA for the past fifteen

years and was also the board chair of the

New York City Coalition for the Homeless.

Currently, under his guidance, NSA is

developing a K12 public school in the

Mt. Eden section of the Bronx.

The organizations each brought to CC9

roots in the community, resources

be they financial resources, staff resources,

physical space for meetingsand relation-

ships, relationships with people, whether

they were neighborhood residents or

representatives who were in elected office.

Each of the organizations began to identifyleaders and members and build a base.

4


10/16


11/16


Develop relationships with the teachers union

In New York City, theres a history of distrust and separation between

parents and teachers. We had to figure out a way to try to soften

the relationship between parents and teachers, but also not give up

our power, parents power.

Ocynthia Williams, Parent Leader

In most U.S. cities, a local affiliate of the National Education Association or the American

Federation of Teachers represents the school systems teachers. Although urban parents and

teachers presumably share an overarching commitment to the successful education of the citys

children, collaborative efforts between parents and teachers to improve urban education have

been exceedingly difficult to achieve.

Before CC9s organizing efforts began, community collaborations with the United Federation of

Teachers (UFT), the citys teachers union, to improve public schooling were quite rare. But CC9

was determined to build a relationship with the UFT precisely because of the unions political

power. The CC9 parent leaders believed that if they could partner with the union in mutually

beneficial school reform projects, the power of such a community-union alliance would maximize

the potential for the reforms success. So CC9 initiated a series of discussions with the UFTs

leadership and local district staff to explore a possible union commitment to supporting CC9s

reform efforts.

The unions leadership, meanwhile, had become convinced that the UFT needed to develop

strategic, trust-based relationships with community groups, not only to end the polarization

generated by previous conflicts (see sidebar), but also to counter the increasing portrayals

of teachers unions as resistant to educational reform. Because a new and powerful national

wave of education reformers, as well as charter advocates and privatization proponents,

were increasingly portraying teachers unions as defendants of traditional practices in poorly

performing urban districts, it was important for the New York City teachers union, the nations

largest, to collaborate with community groups in significant reform efforts.

KEY QUESTIONS

In what ways have you worked with your local teachers union?

How open do they seem to collaborating with you on school improvement or district

reform projects?

What common educational ground do you share?

6

Union-Community Tensions

in New York City

In New York City, the enduring hostility

from the late 1960s Ocean Hill/Brownsville

conflict, which pitted neighborhood-based,

predominantly black and Latino advocates

of community control of schooling against

the predominantly white teachers union,

divided parents and teachers for many

years. Moreover, race and class differences

separating parents and teachers were

often intensified by charges from parents

in poor neighborhoods that too manyteachers harbored the soft bigotry of

low expectations for their children. Many

teachers, in turn, felt unfairly attacked

and denigrated when parents challenged

schooling quality and teaching practice.

Finally, the United Federation of Teachers

(UFT), the citys teachers union, was a

political powerhouse at both city and state

levels since its founding in the early 1960s.

Community groups contemplating joint action

with the UFT often doubted whether the

teachers union would value a community

alliance enough to treat a local group withparity and respect.


12/16

10

1995

Parents in an after-school program

run by the New Settlement

Apartments (NSA), a neighborhood

housing organization, form the

Parent Action Committee (PAC)

to improve PS 64, the local

elementary school.

1998

The principal of PS 64 is removed

after a PAC organizing campaign

puts the spotlight on the schools

persistent educational failure and

the principal fights publicly with

one of his teachers. The PAC works

with the new principal to improve

the school, but the school makes

little progress.

2000

After failing to convince the district

superintendent and the chancellor

to improve District 9s schools, the

PAC helps to form the Community

Collaborative to Improve District 9

Schools, or CC9.

20022003

CC9, working with local teachers

and administrators, the teachers

union, and systemwide school

officials, develops the Lead Teacher

Program to reduce new teacher

attrition and improve the quality of

teaching in ten District 9 schools.

Enlist intermediary support

The staff at Annenberg really understood their role as being primarily

oriented to support the leadership of the parents that were coming

together. And it did that by providing really good research.

Ana Maria Archila, Co-Director, Make the Road

Given the critical role of research and data provision in education organizing, an institution that

can provide such research while valuing and respecting community organizations and parent

leadership can be quite helpful. Education organizing groups that lack the capacity to access

and analyze research and data should consider exploring relationships with university-based

research centers or nonprofit research groups that might provide the necessary data or the other

supports that CO&E provided to the parent organizing groups and coalitions in Parent Power

(see sidebar for more on these supports).

The relationship between the PAC and the intermediary that began as IESP and became a unit

of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform started when Jack Doyle, the executive director

of NSA, contacted IESP to arrange a series of workshops about parents rights for the parent

members of an NSA after-school program. After the workshop series concluded, the parents

formed the PAC, and IESP staffers agreed to support the PACs development with additional

workshops on education issues, as well as with research, data, and other tools for the PACs

organizing. Thus a fifteen-year relationship was initiated, in which IESP, and then CO&E, staffers

have supported parent training, research and data provision, strategy development, retreat

facilitation, organizer training, and fundraising.

KEY QUESTIONS

What supports, such as research, data, strategy, and fundraising, does your

organization need?

Can you identify local university or nonprofit education research groups that might

provide those supports?

Parent PowerTimeline

How Can Intermediary Organizations

Support Parent Organizers?

Intermediary organizations can help support

education organizing groups in ways that

go far beyond research and data provision.

Both IESP and AISR, for example, provided

trainings on a wide range of education

issues to organizers and leaders of individual

groups and coalitions. Both intermediaries

also offered strategic support for group

campaigns, helped with media contacts to

ensure local and citywide publicity, linked

individual groups and coalitions to electedleaders and education reform experts, and

helped groups raise the funding necessary

to support and sustain their organizing.

7


13/16


14/16

12

local education advocacy or school reform nonprofit groups may be able to provide some of the

required resources. It is critical, of course, that all potential intermediary organizations have the

experience and the capacity to work effectively with parent and neighborhood activists.

How is the coalitions funding raised and allocated?

By 2010, CEJs budget, including funding for the member organizations, CO&E staff, and

organizing expenses, totaled a little more than $1 million annually, primarily raised from localand national foundations. The CO&E staff do most of CEJs fundraising by soliciting foundation

support and developing and drafting funding proposals. One of the member CBOs acts as the

coalitions fiscal agent. The coalition allocates funds to member groups according to each

groups organizing capacity. CEJs three tiers of funding, for example, provide grants to member

groups based on their differential capacity for turn-out, political influence, and parent leadership

roles. Groups with consistently large membership turn-out that also effectively leverage the

power of elected officials receive higher allocations than groups with more limited mobilizing

and political capacity. Coalition-wide accountability committees approve allocations to

member groups and assess the performance of each member group in terms of continuation

of their allocations.

What are some ways to build a successful collaboration with the teachers union?There are many ways to initiate a collaboration with the teachers union, but success depends on

starting from shared interests. CC9 and the UFT, for example, shared an interest in improving the

quality of city teaching. CC9 built on that shared interest through intensive negotiations with the

unions leadership, and by developing a trust-based relationship between the CC9 coordinator

and the unions district leader. To expand that relationship to CC9 parent leaders and organizers

and the unions school-based leaders, intensive discussions focused on shared issues such as how

to respond to threatened budget cuts and how to improve traffic safety around schools. Through

extended conversations at school-based meetings, shared dinners, and other events linking

parent leaders and union representatives, more complex issues, such as how to improve teaching

quality, were explored. The idea for the Lead Teacher Program developed from those discussions.

What sustains the films parent leaders across many years of organizing?

The films parent leaders say that the intensity of their commitment to improving the citys

schools, not only for their own children but for all the citys students, keeps them active. The

bonds theyve built with other members of the groups and coalitions also provide key supports.

The leaders indicate that the arc of their own development is crucial; they note how their

strategic capacities and leadership skills have grown, and how they continue to perceive new

challenges as their organizations expand and change. Finally, they see the results of their work

in the development of new educational opportunities for their children.

2008

The school system initiates its

Campaign for Middle School

Success, incorporating CEJs

improvement initiatives and

appointing CEJ members to the

Campaigns advisory committee.

2009

CEJ launches its College Prep,

Not Just Test Prep campaign

to improve the citys schools so

that every student graduates

high school prepared to succeed

in college.

2010

CEJs third annual Martin Luther

King Day rally at the Abyssinian

Baptist Church introduces a K12

reform platform designed to ensure

that the city school system prepares

all its students for success in

college and/or careers.

Ocynthia Williams, Parent Leader

Ocynthia was a leading member of the

Highbridge Community Life Center, and her

six children all attend or attended the citys

public schools. She helped to found both

CC9 and CEJ and is currently an organizer

for the Abyssinian Development Corporation

in Harlem.

They took the whole community involvement

piece out of the expansion of the Lead

Teacher Program, which the evaluators felt

was a huge part of why it was successful.

It was us who brought all of them to the

table, to help develop the program. The

program was a success. Why in the world

would the Department of Education and themayors office expand the program without

including our input?


15/16


About AISRs Center for Education Organizing

The Center for Education Organizing supports local and national demands for educational justice

in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. The Center integrates the expertise

of a university-based research center, years of on-the-ground experience supporting education

organizing, and a longstanding reputation as a convener of education stakeholders.

Center staff provide research, policy analysis, and training to help individual groups and national

networks do education reform. The Center also facilitates alliance-building among education

organizing groups and with other stakeholders such as civil rights and advocacy organizations,

teachers unions, academics, and education researchers. Because parents, teachers, and students

have such critical stakes in improving urban public education, building effective collaborations

between community groups and teachers unions, and between youth organizers and other

stakeholders, are cornerstones of our work. Our support is always tailored to local needs.

The supports we can provide include:

Training

Developing workshops, presentations, or webinars for adult and youth leaders and/or organizers

on education policy issues and specific education organizing contexts.

Research and Policy Analysis

Monitoring and analyzing federal education policy, as well as key issues in states and districts,

to inform local work and to identify key directions in national education debates.

Quickly distilling research or education data to inform adult and youth organizing campaigns.

Alliance-Building

Encouraging and facilitating collaboration between community groups and teachers unions and

between youth organizers and other stakeholders.

Connecting groups working on similar issues and hosting virtual and face-to-face meetings for

leaders to learn with and from each other.

Helping to connect communities with research and policy experts, civil rights organizations,

reform support organizations, and others who can assist them with their organizing work.

Building the Field

Disseminating knowledge of successful organizing strategies.

Initiating and supporting national conversations on strategies and next steps in building a

stronger movement for educational justice.

CONTACT

The Center for Education Organizing welcomes a discussion with you about your organizations

needs and how our range of capabilities can help you achieve your school reform objectives.

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (212) 328-9280

Web: www.annenberginstitute.org


16/16

Pedro Noguera, New York UniversityResearch demonstrates that schools improve when parents and

communities are engaged and apply constructive pressure for change.

Parent Power shows how New York City parents generated significant

schooling change across 15 years of organizing efforts. At a time when

so many policy-makers focus narrowly on technical solutions to the

challenges facing urban schools, Parent Powershows that a more inclusive

and dynamic approach can bring improvement.

Charles M. Payne, University of Chicago

Parent Power is about parent ingenuity, persistence, and capacity to

outlast a bureaucracy that tried to quash parents organizing energy. New

York Citys school reform is frequently touted as the result of top-downmandates, but Parent Powershows how thousands of parents mobilized

to generate important policy and practice changes. These parents set out

to make schools better not only for their children, but for all the citys

children, and they succeeded.

Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers

Children are the real winners when their parents and teachers work

together to improve their schools.Parent Poweris a terrific story of courage,

persistence, and collaboration among parents, community groups, and the

teachers union that produced significant school reform for thousands of

New York Citys children.

Documents

Parent Power: Education Organizing in NYC, 1995-2010 - Viewer's Guide