Annenberg Institute Studies Showcase Effectiveness of Organizing
posted on: Thursday, October 08, 2009
by Julia Craig
The Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University recently released a series of C. S. Mott Foundation-funded case studies profiling the work of nonprofits organizing for school reform across the country. “The Impact of Community and Youth Organizing on School Reform” series examined the strategies of residents of seven urban areas across the country in their efforts to enact local school reforms.
One of the organizations included in the series was the Community Coalition of South Los Angeles. The Annenberg Institute documented the Community Coalition’s work improving access to college preparatory courses at high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).
The South L.A. Report profiled one of the students benefitting from access to college preparatory courses. The summary of the Annenberg Institute’s findings illustrated the power that organizing brought to the struggle for equitable access to resources in the school district. Russlyn Ali, executive director of The Education Trust-West said, “I am pretty convinced that no amount of intellectual framing and data and research that we could have provided would have moved the district. We needed the 800-plus Latino and African American parents to mandate rigor. It was organizing unlike anywhere else I’ve seen in the nation.”
Community Coalition co-created the Communities for Educational Equity coalition in 2004, which organized parents and students to demand more equitable distribution of resources and greater accountability from LAUSD. According to the study, organizing accomplished these goals. One school official commented that it was the largest reform the district passed in 20 years. The South L.A. Report talked to Luis Lopez, who graduated in 2008 and now attends UCLA, where he is doing research on South L.A. as part of his studies. He hadn’t even considered college until his senior year, since neither of his parents went. Luis was the valedictorian of his class. Still, upon enrollment in UCLA, he found that he wasn’t prepared for the rigors of a college setting. He looked around and realized he hadn’t had the same opportunities as his new classmates. As he told the South L.A. Report, “[I]f you compare Beverly Hills High to Fremont, one looks like a prison and the other looks like a university.”
The Annenberg Institute’s work to document the effectiveness of education reform organizing complements NCRP’s Grantmaking for Community Impact Project. L.A. County is the fourth site of the project, following New Mexico, North Carolina and Minnesota. Additionally, Community Coalition is one of NCRP’s nonprofit partners and will participate in the research by providing us with data about their work and accomplishments over the past five years. NCRP senior research associate Lisa Ranghelli and I will be working with Community Coalition and 14 other groups in L.A. County documenting their work to educate funders about the value of advocacy and organizing work. We will release the results of our study in early 2010. I hope you’ll watch out for it!
Julia Craig is research associate at NCRP.Labels: community organizing, Grantmaking for Community Impact Project, Los Angeles, Measuring Impact
The Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University recently released a series of C. S. Mott Foundation-funded case studies profiling the work of nonprofits organizing for school reform across the country. “The Impact of Community and Youth Organizing on School Reform” series examined the strategies of residents of seven urban areas across the country in their efforts to enact local school reforms.
One of the organizations included in the series was the Community Coalition of South Los Angeles. The Annenberg Institute documented the Community Coalition’s work improving access to college preparatory courses at high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).
The South L.A. Report profiled one of the students benefitting from access to college preparatory courses. The summary of the Annenberg Institute’s findings illustrated the power that organizing brought to the struggle for equitable access to resources in the school district. Russlyn Ali, executive director of The Education Trust-West said, “I am pretty convinced that no amount of intellectual framing and data and research that we could have provided would have moved the district. We needed the 800-plus Latino and African American parents to mandate rigor. It was organizing unlike anywhere else I’ve seen in the nation.”
Community Coalition co-created the Communities for Educational Equity coalition in 2004, which organized parents and students to demand more equitable distribution of resources and greater accountability from LAUSD. According to the study, organizing accomplished these goals. One school official commented that it was the largest reform the district passed in 20 years. The South L.A. Report talked to Luis Lopez, who graduated in 2008 and now attends UCLA, where he is doing research on South L.A. as part of his studies. He hadn’t even considered college until his senior year, since neither of his parents went. Luis was the valedictorian of his class. Still, upon enrollment in UCLA, he found that he wasn’t prepared for the rigors of a college setting. He looked around and realized he hadn’t had the same opportunities as his new classmates. As he told the South L.A. Report, “[I]f you compare Beverly Hills High to Fremont, one looks like a prison and the other looks like a university.”
The Annenberg Institute’s work to document the effectiveness of education reform organizing complements NCRP’s Grantmaking for Community Impact Project. L.A. County is the fourth site of the project, following New Mexico, North Carolina and Minnesota. Additionally, Community Coalition is one of NCRP’s nonprofit partners and will participate in the research by providing us with data about their work and accomplishments over the past five years. NCRP senior research associate Lisa Ranghelli and I will be working with Community Coalition and 14 other groups in L.A. County documenting their work to educate funders about the value of advocacy and organizing work. We will release the results of our study in early 2010. I hope you’ll watch out for it!
Julia Craig is research associate at NCRP.
Labels: community organizing, Grantmaking for Community Impact Project, Los Angeles, Measuring Impact
posted by Julia Craig at
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