community organizing for school improvement in …...study of education organizing done by research...

INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATION & SOCIAL POLICYNew York University, School of Education

CO M M U N ITY IN V O LV EM EN T P RO G RA M

Community Organizing for SchoolImprovement in the South Bronx

A Case Study:


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A CASE STUDY:

CCOMMUNITYOMMUNITY OORGANIZINGRGANIZING FORFOR SSCHOOLCHOOLIIMPROVEMENTMPROVEMENT ININ THETHE SSOUTHOUTH BBRONXRONX

Eric Zacharyshola olatoye

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT PROGRAM


COPYRIGHT © MARCH 2001

Founded in 1995, the Institute for Education and Social Policy of New York University works tostrengthen urban public schools, particularly those serving low–income neighborhoods and communitiesof color. Through its policy studies, research, evaluations and technical assistance, the Institute seeks tobuild capacity for school improvement among policy–makers, educational practitioners, parents andcommunity–based organizations. From its inception, the Institute’s work has been shaped by its corebelief that significant improvement in poorly performing schools in low–income urban communitiesrequires a combination of system–wide policy reforms, capacity building at the school level, and thedevelopment of political will to ensure equitable resource allocation and accountability.

The Institute’s Community Involvement Program focuses on strengthening the capacity ofcommunity–based organizations to organize parents and neighborhood residents to hold the school systemaccountable for providing effective education. CIP provides neighborhood–based technical assistance toindividual CBOs on school improvement and parent organizing strategies, and also supports the developmentof citywide campaigns that bring groups together to work for system–wide education policy reform.

CIP’s technical assistance takes the following forms:1. Convening and facilitation of meetings to assist groups in exploring schooling problems

and possibilities for working together;2. Training on schooling issues and organizing/leadership development strategies;3. Data analysis and presentation on school performance and expenditures;4. Policy analysis and development of reform proposals;5. Strategy and organizational development consultation to assist organizations

in carrying out the organizing work;6. Brokering relationships to other sources of information and support;7. Assessment and feedback on progress, barriers and overall strategy; and8. Coordination and administrative support for citywide organizing activity.

The authors of this paper are staff members of the NYU Institute for Education and Social Policy. TheInstitute has provided intensive technical assistance to New Settlement Apartments (NSA) to support theorganizing work described in this case study. For this paper, the data collected through the authors’ role astechnical assistance providers was supplemented by interviews with parents and NSA staff, as well asanalysis of NSA documents. By request, all quotations from parents are anonymous.

THE NYU INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATION & SOCIAL POLICY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Caroline and Sigmund Schott Foundation, Charles StewartMott Foundation, Donors Education Collaborative, Edward W. Hazen Foundation, E. M. KauffmanFoundation, Ford Foundation, Fund for the City of New York, Irene Diamond Trust, J.P. Morgan, New YorkCommunity Trust, New York Foundation, New World Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Partnershipfor Afterschool Education, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Spingold Foundation, Surdna Foundation, and theWendling Foundation for their support of the Institute's Community Involvement Program.

First, this is a great story. When poor parents in the Bronx realize their children’s school is one of theworst in New York City, they seek advice from the community group that rebuilt their housingdevelopment. Armed with data that only a small fraction of students have learned to read, they organize aparent base and learn how to take action. For the first time, perhaps in history, the school board andsuperintendent are compelled by their organization and arguments to listen. The principal is replaced, andnew programs come in. End of story? Not quite....

Not only do the authors tell the story well; they ground it in strong theory. Why do schools in low-income neighborhoods so often perform poorly? Zachary and olatoye locate the root cause, as the lack ofpolitical will to ensure that all children receive the quantity and quality of educational resources they bothneed and deserve. Study after study has documented how students in the urban core are shortchanged:lower-level programs; teachers poorly prepared or teaching out of field; weak, drill-based instruction;fewer resources and materials; and low expectations.

In middle class districts, we don’t find schools that fail to teach 80% of their students to read, becausethe people who live there have extensive social networks and political skills. In low-income areas, not onlyare social connections depleted, but there is little political capital, which the authors define as “the cloutand competence a community can wield to influence public decisions.” Community organizing aims torebuild both social and political capital, and to restore a healthy balance of power.

Power tends to corrupt, as Lord Acton famously noted. But so does lack of power. In this paper, thepoint is that power well distributed is a positive force. School officials acted as if they could do, or not do,whatever they wanted because no one would challenge them. But the problems in schools developed inpart because no one from the community had challenged them. For far too long, parents believed thatnothing they would do would make any difference, so why bother?

The authors note, astutely, that rebuilding power in our low-income communities could be a viablealternative to free market solutions (like vouchers, tax credits, and charter schools) for holding publicschools accountable. Public education works well in communities where families whose children go to thepublic schools have as much power -- connections, access, political skill -- as the officials who run theschools. Public education is faltering in distressed, low-income communities, where the people who runthe schools are perceived to be of a “superior” social status, race and/or culture, than the families whosechildren attend the schools. Teachers and principals feel accountable to the officials who sign their checks,not to the families of their students. Furthermore, educators tend to blame the families for their children’splight. The result is that families feel and seem powerless.

In situations like this, traditional methods of engaging families not only do not work. They areinappropriate. The language of community organizing uses a vocabulary that does not appear in the PTAmanual or “family-school partnership” workshops. What did the New Settlement Apartments staff do tohelp the Parent Action Committee organize and have an impact? Parents began observing the school andclassrooms. Together they analyzed school-wide student achievement data and research on goodeducational practice. They compared their school’s data with others in the city, visiting schools that servea similar population, but where children’s achievement is high. They formulated proposals, and engagedin collective actions to move them forward. When the community school district stonewalled them, theypresented their demands to the Board of Education.

FOREWORD

This is an entirely new model for parent involvement, and it is gathering speed. In New York City, thenumber of groups organizing around education issues has quadrupled in the past seven years. A recentstudy of education organizing done by Research for Action found 150 urban and rural communityorganizing groups across the country, some affiliated with national organizations like ACORN and theIndustrial Areas Foundation, and others more homegrown.

The traditional approach to parent involvement developed in largely white, middle classneighborhoods, where teachers and administrators lived and sent their kids to the same school districtwhere they worked. Out of this arose the concept of a parent-teacher association, where parents placedthemselves at the service of the school, trusting in the expertise of the educators.

As our nation became more urbanized and culturally diverse, the forms and trappings of school-basedparent involvement did not evolve accordingly. The dominant model is still the parent-teacher associationor its variant. At the beginning of the 21st Century, active PTAs are largely found in the suburbs and inelementary schools. In the cities and diverse inner-ring suburbs, parent-school organizations, where theyexist at all, tend to be small, dominated by an in-crowd of middle class parents, and avoided by familiesof color and with lower incomes. Not surprisingly, when polled, teachers and principals invariably identifylack of parent involvement as “a serious problem.”

Since the 1960's, activists, progressive educators, and parent-community organizations have beenworking on new models. The basics of standard parent involvement – parents helping their children athome and volunteering for tasks defined by the school – continue, but with advocacy and power-sharingelements added. Advocacy is encouraged through processes like personal learning plans jointly developedwith families, student support teams, study circles, and discussions of student performance data. Limitedpower sharing is arranged through familiar devices like school governance councils, advisory committees,and school improvement teams.

Traditional parent involvement and its upgrades are based in schools and depend on their approval andsupport. The language is one of partnership, collaboration, accommodation and creating a shared culture.In the traditional model, power-sharing (usually called shared decision-making) means that parents andfamilies should have some influence over what happens to their children in school, but that educatorsremain firmly in charge.

In contrast, the community-organizing model talks unabashedly about building power and changingthe culture of schools. When collaboration fails, confrontation takes its place. Accountability, notaccommodation, is the watchword. The parents’ base is a community group outside the school. This lastpoint is key. School-based parent groups are generally too weak to mount a serious challenge over acomplex issue like low student achievement. Creating a base outside the school by allying with acommunity group that has organizing and political skills triangulates the situation. Head-to-head with aschool or district, parents usually lose. But coupled with the community sector, parents get respect.

This work is young and evolving. Although building political power in low-income communities is anessential condition for change, more infrastructure is often required to make that change happen. Some urbanschool districts have the capacity to educate all children, if they feel enough effective pressure. Other districtsmust develop that capacity, or lose students to the streets, or to charter schools and privatization schemes. Thesecond act, how community organizing can support the development of district capacity and negotiate tobecome part of the reform process, is now being written. It’s going to be another fascinating story.

Anne T. HendersonWashington, DCMarch 2001

How can a community organization, dedicated to neighborhoodrevitalization, help parents improve their local public school? Thispaper documents how a group of concerned parents and NewSettlement Apartments (NSA), a unique housing development groupin New York City that manages 900 units of low to moderate incomehousing, used a community organizing methodology to try to raiseacademic achievement in their neighborhood elementary school.The group ultimately succeeded in removing the school’s principalbecause they held him responsible for student failure to learn. Thepaper narrates the development of NSA’s Parent Action Committee,the organizing strategies they employed in their efforts to improvethe school’s outcomes, and the assistance provided by theCommunity Involvement Program of New York University’sInstitute for Education and Social Policy.

Institute For Education & Social Policy • 726 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10003 • 212/998–5880 fax 212/995–4564 • www.nyu.edu/iesp 1

A Case Study:COMMUNITY ORGANIZING FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT IN THE SOUTH BRONX

INTRODUCTION

Several years ago, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani ofNew York City called for blowing up the Board ofEducation. While he was criticized for theharshness of his rhetoric, the comment resonatedwith many of the parents whose children attendpublic schools in the city’s low–incomeneighborhoods. While most of those people didnot vote for Giuliani, his statement reflected theirfrustration from seeing too many of their childrenfail to master basic academic skills and, therefore,face a future of limited options. It also reflectedtheir cynicism that the schools in theirneighborhoods have been allowed to fail for yearswith no consequences. The school system heraldsa new set of reforms every few years, but the realityfor the parents in these neighborhoods is that “themore schools change, the more they stay the same.”

The current discussion about the failure ofpublic schools in low–income urbanneighborhoods is the latest chapter in an historicaldebate as to what role public education should playin making our society a more equal one. On theone hand, public education is supposed to functionas the gateway to equal opportunity for all citizens;accordingly, a family’s social and economic

position should bear little if any “relation to theprobability of future educational attainment andthe wealth and station it affords” (Kozol, 1991, p.207). On the other hand, the resources devoted topublic schooling, including financial, human andcurricular, have never been distributed equitably;instead, resource distribution has always beenhighly correlated with the class and racialcomposition of local communities. In our innercities, schools in low–income and working–classneighborhoods “have traditionally been thebasements of opportunity in American schooling,catchbasins to which the sons and daughters ofwaves of immigrants, as well as migrants from theblack South and Puerto Rico, have been assigned”(Fruchter, 1998, p. 11). Largely as a result, publicschools have never successfully prepared allgroups of students, particularly children of colorand children in low–income communities, with theskills that would enable them as adults to access abroad range of productive roles in the economic,social and political spheres of our society.

While the current debate over how to improvepublic schools in low–income urban communitiesincludes differences over educational philosophy,it also embodies fundamental political differences.The political side of the debate has great urgencyat the present due to the vigorous attack by

conservative forces on the very nature of publiceducation. Many conservatives argue that thepublic monopoly over education, and itsaccompanying bureaucratization and lack ofcompetition and innovation, is the root politicalcause of its poor quality. Their alternativeparadigm posits market mechanisms, includingvouchers and privatization, as the key instrumentfor organizing schools for improved studentoutcomes (Chubb and Moe, 1990).

For those who are committed to preservingpublic education and making it more of anequalizing force –– in this paper, they will bereferred to as progressives or the Left –– perhapsmost disturbing is the increasing tendency ofconservative forces to frame their effort as aresponse to the abysmal performance of schoolsin low–income urban neighborhoods andcommunities of color in particular. Theirindictment of public education as well as thesolutions they present use the rhetoric of equalopportunity and social justice. If the polls arecorrect, their position is gaining support in thosecommunities. As one African–Americansupporter of vouchers put it: “It’s one of the lastremaining major barriers to equality ofopportunity in America, the fact that we haveinequality of education. I don’t want tonecessarily depend on the government to educatemy children –– they haven’t done a good job indoing that…” (Wilgoren, p.1). The future ofpublic education may well be fought on theterrain of urban education.

The challenge for progressives is, withoutdefending the performance and practices of innercity public school systems, to present acompelling paradigm of how to transform them sothat all children receive a high quality education.A progressive analysis of the failure of theseschools locates the root cause in the lack ofpolitical will to ensure that the children inlow–income inner city neighborhoods andcommunities of color receive the quantity andquality of educational resources necessary toimplement what we know will transform learningand achievement. Recent research demonstratingthat class size reduction, particularly in the earlygrades, and improving the quality of a school’steaching staff increase student achievement is a

significant addition to our knowledge base(Education Trust, 1998; Ellmore & Burney, 1997).It is also further demonstration that “moneymatters for students from less advantagedbackgrounds and minority students…” (Grissmer,1998, p.1). This does not deny, however, theimpact of the social problems that poor childrenbring to school. Nor is it meant to deny thepernicious role that low expectations, racism andburnt–out teachers play in developingdysfunctional school cultures. Rather, it meansthat “we have to improve the quality of instructionin urban schools and we have to increase theirfunding; both are essential and neither will happenwithout the other” (Connell, 1998, p.24).

The development of the political willnecessary to transform urban schooling involvesmultiple constituencies and strategies, and mayvary by city (Gittell, 1994; Orr, 1999; Stone, 1998).This paper will focus on one element: the efforts ofparents and residents in low–income urbanneighborhoods to develop sufficient political will,through community organizing, to hold the schoolsystem accountable for improving the educationaloutcomes of local public schools. Over the pastdecade, this work has grown significantly, withcommunity–based organizations (CBOs) playing aleading role. In New York City, for example, thenumber of CBOs engaged in this work has grownfrom three in 1994 to more than a dozen today.These groups represent an alternative to both thetraditional bureaucratic parent involvementmechanisms established by school systems thathave failed to serve as meaningful voices forparents, as well as conservatives’ emphasis onindividual parental choice as the primaryaccountability mechanism for improving schools.

The following case study of the NewSettlement Apartments Parent Action Committeeillustrates the opportunities and challenges thatresult when a community–based organizationextends its work of rebuilding a low–incomeneighborhood by organizing the community’spolitical will and capacity to improve its publicschools. The implications of this study, however,extend beyond the issue of schools. By utilizing acommunity organizing strategy to build thecollective and independent power of parents andresidents to influence the practices and outcomes of

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their local schools, New Settlement Apartment’swork intersects with the larger discussion about howto rebuild the civic capacity and sense of communitywithin low–income urban neighborhoods.

NEW SETTLEMENT APARTMENTS

BackgroundOpened in 1990, New Settlement Apartments

(NSA) is a housing development of nearly 900families in the Mount Eden section of thesouthwest Bronx. It is composed of 14fully–renovated, previously–abandoned buildings

within an eight square–block area that had“…experienced the destruction of inner cityAmerica that went largely unchecked from the1950’s through the early 1980’s” (Walsh, 1996,p.6). Its intentionally diverse mix of residentsinclude a very substantial core of working peopleas well as 30% who were formerly homeless. Thesurrounding neighborhood is part of one of thepoorest areas in New York City. In 1996, morethan 40% of the households had incomes below$10,000, and 93% of the children in the localschool district were eligible for free lunch (CitizensCommittee for Children of New York, 1999).

From its inception, NSA’s mission has beennot only to rebuild and maintain a significant


A Case Study: Community Organizing for School Improvement in the South Bronx

Over the last twenty years,“school/community collaborations have expandedgreatly…” (Cahill, 1996, p.1). Most CBOinvolvement in schools has focused on providingsupplemental educational, recreational and socialservices to children and their families. Typically,this has meant enrichment and after–schoolprograms for youth. CBOs have traditionallybeen reluctant to mobilize their communities todemand better schools for the same reasons thatparents have been hesitant to organize –– a sensethat the school system is virtually unmovable andhighly suspicious of “outsiders,” and that giventhe complexity of the school system, they lack theexpertise to change it.

Increasingly, however, CBOs engaged in thecomprehensive rebuilding of poor urbanneighborhoods are recognizing that thelong–term health and stability of theircommunities requires successful schools.Additional services provided by a CBO do notautomatically lead to improvements in thequality of education that children receive duringthe school day. More CBOs, like NSA, are

concluding that they can ill afford to ignore thequality of their local schools or expect them to betransformed through the existing schoolbureaucracy or the market (Zachary, 1999).

These community–based organizations,including housing/community developmentorganizations, youth agencies, immigrant serviceand advocacy groups, and community organizinggroups, combine the following elements ofpractice that we believe are necessary to supportand sustain independent, effective schoolorganizing:

Roots in a particular neighborhood and a sustained commitment to serve and developit;

Relationships with parents and residents, theconstituencies critical to community–basedschool improvement efforts; and

Resources, including trained staff and anadministrative infrastructure, necessary for the labor–intensive and skilled work ofcommunity outreach.

COMMUNITY–BASED ORGANIZATIONS AND SCHOOLS

portion of the neighborhood’s housing stock, butalso to provide education programs andcommunity services to all area residents. By1996, NSA was able to cite a range ofaccomplishments, including:

• providing decent and safe housing to 893families at affordable rates, typicallyless than 25% of income;

• enticing the first bank to relocate in thecommunity since the 1970s;

• building and maintaining the onlyplayground for children in the area;

• establishing and staffing a communitycomputer lab;

• implementing a program to combatdomestic violence through the training ofpeer counselors; &

• developing a comprehensive set of youthdevelopment programs focusing on arts,academic enrichment, the environment, and recreation.

Getting Started: Entry Points The condition of the local public schools

surrounding the NSA development stood in sharpcontrast to the physical and social rebuilding ofthe community that NSA was spearheading.NSA’s surrounding school district, CommunitySchool District 9, had earned a reputation as oneof the most corrupt and poorly performingdistricts in the entire city. In the early months of1996 several parents with children in District 9schools, who were involved in NSA activities andhad learned about yet another scandal involvingthe members of the local school board,approached the leadership of NSA to discuss whatcould be done to improve local schools. With theelection for the school boards in all thirty–twocommunity school districts scheduled for May ofthat year, a small group of parents, with NSA staffsupport, launched a voter registration drive inDistrict 9. While that effort lasted only a fewmonths and ended up having little impact on theoutcome of the election in the district, it did leadto NSA’s involvement with the School Board

Election Network, a citywide effort of the NYUInstitute for Education and Social Policy (IESP)to support CBOs’ engagement of theirconstituencies in the school board elections.

The election experience piqued NSA’sinterest in exploring what role it could play inimproving the neighborhood’s public schools.While NSA had no prior experience with theschools, its interest was a reflection of itsphilosophy, as outlined in a funding proposal, that“…’housing is not just bricks and mortar.’ …Ourmission is not only to rebuild and maintain asizeable portion of the housing stock in thisimpoverished neighborhood, but also to supportthe rebuilding of the social capital of thisneighborhood.” The organization began adialogue with IESP about what NSA could do andhow it might get started. Going door–to–door torecruit parents, an initial technique often used incommunity organizing to begin building a base ofmembers for subsequent activity, was too faroutside NSA’s repertoire (see box on p. 10). Aswith most CBOs that provide services andmanage housing, NSA was used to engagingresidents as clients who visit its office to accessservices. NSA realized that its clearest link toschools resided in its after–school program,which was housed in NSA’s community centerand served 60 children, most enrolled in localpublic schools. Why not start with the parents ofthose children and work to identify their specificconcerns and their interest in banding together toimprove the schools?

The next question NSA faced was how toengage those parents in a discussion about theirschools. As part of the after–school program’seffort to involve parents, a requirement foradmission was a commitment from each parent toattend monthly workshops on parenting andeducation. Since the workshops were an ongoingprogram component, they represented a safe firststep for NSA. Staff from IESP and NSAcollaborated on designing and facilitating twoworkshops in the Winter of 1996. The firstworkshop focused on the rights of parents in theNYC public schools and the second on howparents can advocate for their children’s needs inthe schools. Both NSA and IESP hoped that

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SOCIAL CAPITAL IS NOT ENOUGH TO CHANGE SCHOOLS

some of the parents would want to use theknowledge they acquired from the workshops toexplore the possibility of taking collective actionto improve their children’s schools.

The workshops were designed to provideconcrete and useful information to parents.Recognizing that the school system did notprovide meaningful opportunities for parents totalk with one another and identify common

problems, the sessions were also designed toencourage dialogue among parents. For many ofthe 35 parents who attended, the workshops werethe first time they learned of their rights as parentsand participated in small group discussions withother parents about their children’s performanceand experience in the neighborhood’s schools.The workshops generated considerable enthusiasmamong the parents. At the end of the secondworkshop, 20 parents volunteered to participate in


The last 30 years has seen an explosion ofcommunity–based organizations providingservices and rebuilding the housing stock in low–and moderate–income urban neighborhoods. Overthe last ten years, some of those CBOs have beenengaged, with support from foundations, in what isoften referred to as community building orcomprehensive community initiatives. Theseinitiatives are based on the premise that rebuildingthose communities requires not only strengtheningtheir economy and infrastructure, but the quality ofrelationships among residents as well. It issupported by the research of Robert Putnam andothers who have documented the value of socialcapital, which Putnam defines as “connectionsamong individuals –– social networks and thenorms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arisefrom them” (Putnam, 2000, p. 19).

What receives considerably less attention inthe discussion of rebuilding low–income urbanneighborhoods, however, is that a community’sstock of social capital –– as reflected inresidents’ participation in voluntary tenant andblock associations, community gardens, andmentoring programs in schools, to name a fewexamples –– does not automatically translate intothe political capital necessary to hold publicinstitutions, including schools, accountable.Political capital can be defined as “the clout andcompetence a community can wield to influencepublic decisions in order to obtain resources,

services and opportunities from the public andprivate sectors…Political capital requiresdeliberate activity to engage communitymembers in collective action generated andcontrolled though their own strategic thinkingand reflection” (Mediratta, 1995, p.6).

Given how deeply public schools are impactedby political processes, from the allocation offinancial resources to the election of school boardsand the appointment of superintendents, can alow–income community leverage significantschool improvement without political capital? Asone analyst of school reform efforts in Baltimoreputs it, “schools are not islands unto themselves.School districts interact profoundly with theirsocial, economic, and political environments”(Orr, 1996, p.315).

While they are distinct entities, social andpolitical capital are powerfully connected. Ifresidents feel a strong sense of community andreciprocity with one another, they are more likelyto risk engaging in collective political action.Conversely, when a community uses its politicalcapital to achieve improvements in theneighborhood, people’s sense of hopefulness andtrust in one another will likely deepen. Thecapacity of low–income urban neighborhoods, likethe one in which NSA is located, to bring aboutchange in local schools requires the developmentof both social and political capital.

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a follow–up meeting to explore taking actiontogether to improve their local schools. TheParent Action Committee (PAC), a name theparents gave the group several months later, wasborn that night.

The Parent Action Committee is Born: The Role of Training and DataWhen this group of parents began meeting

together during the Winter and Spring of 1997,they faced the challenge that every group engagedin organizing faces––making choices about whereto focus their energies. Do they focus on oneschool? If so, which one and on what basis?Several schools? The entire district, composed of35 schools? Of all the problems they identified,which should they work on first? Given thecomplexity of the educational process and thestructure that governs it, what do they need toknow to make effective strategic choices?

After several meetings in which theybrainstormed and categorized problems anddiscussed the criteria for prioritizing them withIESP staff in attendance, PAC members decided tofocus on the district’s efforts to promote literacy.Clearly, by traditional organizing criteria –– is theissue concrete, specific, urgent and winnable? ––literacy was not the usual starting point.Moreover, the PAC could not act without firstconducting research. As part of theirinvestigation, they discovered that a centralstrategy employed by the district was the GoldenHour, a 90–minute reading period that everyclassroom in every school was expected toimplement daily. From their own observationsinside the schools and from stories they heard fromtheir children and other parents, PAC membersbegan to suspect there was a significant gapbetween the district’s design and the schools’implementation of the reading period.

In response to this finding, the PAC made itsfirst organizational request. They asked for, andwere granted a meeting with district personnel todiscuss the Golden Hour. For most if not all of theparents, this was the first time they attended ameeting with district officials. The meeting,which was held at NSA, was a major

disappointment for the group. Not only did thedistrict officials not provide direct answers to theparents’ questions; they completely dominated themeeting. The district personnel defended thedistrict’s programs without acknowledging anyvalidity in the concerns raised by the PAC. Therewas no effort to understand the parents’ concernsand experiences; instead, the district staffconducted a monologue. PAC members were notready to take the bold step of interrupting the“authority figures.” But they left the meetingfeeling disrespected and angry.

Unlike the situation that a traditional parentassociation would face under similarcircumstances, the PAC was not dependent onthese administrators or the system theyrepresented (see box on p.8). The PAC did notdepend on the school system for its organizationalinfrastructure –– meeting space, copying machine,computer, and telephone. Nor was the PAC alonein figuring out the next steps. Its independence ofthe system, combined with the staff andinfrastructure support that NSA and IESPprovided, enabled the PAC to avoid the twoextremes that parents often get mired in,demoralization and despair about changingschools at one end and lashing out in angerresulting in non–strategic actions at the other.

The PAC went back to the research IESP staffhad provided to identify more precisely the rightquestions to ask, the ones to use as levers to holdthe school and district accountable. At this point,the PAC consisted of about 15 core members. Thegroup had not yet reached out to other parentsbecause the core members felt they needed tobolster their own understanding first. Forexample, the PAC had not yet examined thequantitative data IESP had assembled about theschools that would enable them to move beyondanecdotal evidence of school dysfunction.Additionally, because PAC members feltoverwhelmed with trying to understand what washappening in schools across the district, theydecided for the time being to focus on the schoolclosest to NSA, PS 64. The school’s compositionreflected the demographics of the community;80% of the students were Latino and 18% wereAfrican–American, and 93% were eligible for free

Institute For Education & Social Policy • 726 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10003 • 212/998–5880 fax 212/995–4564 • www.nyu.edu/iesp

lunch. The PAC asked IESP staff to design andfacilitate a four–week training series during thesummer of 1997 to assist PAC members inunderstanding PS 64’s Annual School Report, theNYC Board of Education’s school “report card”that contains demographic and outcome data, aswell as the school’s Comprehensive EducationPlan for improving student achievement.

It was during the training that PAC memberslearned the astonishing fact that proved a turningpoint in the PAC’s development: only 17% of thechildren at PS 64 were reading at grade level. Thisstatistic proved critical in several respects. First, itlegitimated parents’ personal frustration and angerwith the school because it elevated the anecdotal tothe quantifiable. This piece of data also served asa bridge to settle the ongoing and emotional debatewithin the group about who was responsible forthe poor performance of the school: put simply,parents or the school system? Was the failure apersonal or political one? From the data IESPpresented, parents discovered that:

• 83% of the students were not reading at grade level,

• PS 64 ranked 657 out of 674 city elementary schools based on the results from the citywide reading test,

• the school received almost $500,000 per year in Title 1 funding, an allocation tohelp schools in low–income communitiesimprove their student outcomes,

• the school had made virtually no progressin reading over the last three years, and

• compared to schools with similar rates ofpoverty and students with limited Englishproficiency, PS 64 performed at a muchlower level.

The data ended the debate. It was clear to PACmembers that while parents were certainlyresponsible for preparing and supporting theirchildren’s learning, the school system wasresponsible for providing a quality education. Thetarget for parents’ anger was clearer now. Thoseelected and appointed officials who ran the schoolsystem, and were paid with residents’ tax money,

were accountable to parents and the community.The 17% figure proved to be a powerful tool forrecruiting parents. Its simplicity and power madeit an effective rallying cry.

Armed with this new consensus about whowas ultimately accountable for PS 64’s ongoingfailure, the PAC organized a meeting with theschool principal and the district superintendent todiscuss their concerns. PAC members were angrybut still hopeful they could establish a workingrelationship with the school to improve studentachievement. A PAC leader summed it up thisway: “We were trying to be as fair as possible.”Once again, the response of the system’s leadersastonished the parents. The principal andsuperintendent were unfamiliar with the data theparents presented, all of which were taken frompublicly available Board of Education documents.The superintendent actually asked, “where did youget these numbers?” As in the earlier meeting withthe district officials, the principal andsuperintendent defended their performance andprograms and, even in the face of the data, neveracknowledged there were serious problems at theschool. The parents were particularly struck bythe lack of urgency expressed. To the PAC, therewas an educational crisis at PS 64. How could theschool officials responsible for their children’seducation not recognize that? The meetingconcluded with the principal and superintendentrefusing to meet again with the PAC, and directingPAC members to join the parent association.

What they didn’t know was that PAC membersalready had experience with the parent association(PA). Members found the monthly PA meetings tobe tightly controlled by a few people and notfocused on the issues connected to studentachievement that motivated PAC. One PACmember said “the PTA didn’t know theinformation that we needed to hold the schoolsresponsible.” Moreover, the PA leaders assumeda defensive posture similar to the principal andsuperintendent whenever parents askedchallenging questions about school practices andoutcomes. In sum, the behavior of the leaders ofthe school system, not an ideologicalpredisposition, pushed the PAC into a moreconfrontational posture with the school system.


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The traditional vehicle for parents’ voice inpublic schools is the parent association orparent–teacher association. In most cases, theseofficial all–volunteer parent groups lack thecapacity to function as independent voicesquestioning how schools are organized toprovide instruction to students. This is a result ofseveral factors, including: their “insider” statusderiving from being established by andultimately accountable to the school system;having no staff trained in organizing parents;possessing limited resources, especially inlow–income communities; and lacking power orauthority over what happens in the school,particularly in the area of instruction.

These groups are most active in organizingactivities like bake sales to raise money,volunteering in classrooms and for field trips,and participating in endless meetings that rarelyfocus on core teaching and learning issues.While fundraising and volunteering can beimportant parent roles in effective schools, infailing schools these roles support an educationalprogram and culture that are ineffective andoften dysfunctional. Not surprisingly, the parent

organizations often mirror the larger dysfunctionalschool culture. They end up focusing more oncompliance with the system’s regulations than onschool accountability for student outcomes.Internally, they conduct limited outreach to thebroader parent community and then blame otherparents for not getting involved. The parentleaders exhibit the traditional authoritarianapproach to leadership, with a small cliquemaking decisions and the absence of a sense ofcommunity within the association.

As a result, the official parent groups inpoorly performing schools are too oftenextremely small in numbers, unrepresentative,and largely controlled by school administrators.Moreover, because membership in these groupsis restricted to those with a parental relationshipto a child in the school, community residentswho are not parents of children attending theschool are excluded. Groups like the PACrepresent an alternative vehicle, independent ofthe school system and open to residents wholive in the community but don’t have children inthe school(s).

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THE FAILURE OF TRADITIONAL PARENT INVOLVEMENT

The PAC Moves Outside the System, While Reaching Inside the CommunityParticipation in the training and in the

meetings with school officials resulted in PACmembers feeling more knowledgeable, confidentand determined. At the start of the 1997–98school year, the PAC felt it was time to reach outto the community to broaden its membership baseand demonstrate its power to influence thedistrict. There was no longer any question aboutwhether the PAC had a right and responsibility toraise school performance issues. If the PACdidn’t, who would?

This turn outward triggered a significantexpansion in the PAC’s work. The group beganmeeting on a weekly basis, with IESP staffparticipating as a resource on educational issues

and sharing with PAC members the organizingexperiences of other CBOs engaged in similarwork. NSA provided space, food, childcare, andverbal and written Spanish translation at everymeeting. Up to this point, NSA staff providedthese and other forms of organizing support to thePAC in addition to their regular full–time duties.Because it was becoming almost impossible tocontinue this arrangement, NSA’s executivedirector took the important step of assigning a newsocial worker with community organizingexperience to support the PAC. Although thePAC’s work was supposed to take only 25% of hertime, this was a major step forward and would leadinexorably to a full–time position.

With the added NSA staff support, the PAC setout to organize a community forum to share what it



had learned about PS 64 and listen to parents’ andresidents’ testimony about the major problems inthe school. The PAC also conceived of the forumas a vehicle to recruit parents to attend a PACdemonstration at the community school boardmeeting scheduled for the following week.Through a multi–pronged outreach strategy thatincluded leafleting outside the school and withinthe NSA development, extensive phone bankingfrom the NSA office, and presentations at localchurches, the PAC drew 70 parents to the forum.At the forum, PAC leaders made a presentation onparent rights and the major findings from the PS 64Annual School Report. The PAC then divided theparticipants into small groups, led by trained PACfacilitators, to discuss their concerns about PS 64.By providing useful information and encouragingparents to talk with and listen to one another, thePAC established itself as a very differentorganization than the parent association. Aseemingly small technique –– breaking into smallgroups for discussion –– encouraged parents toview each other as sources of knowledge andsupport, helped build relationships among peopleand facilitated their investment in the organization.The forum succeeded in attracting new membersand projecting the PAC’s name into the community.

At this point, NSA and the PAC reached acritical juncture in their relationship. For most ofthe parents, the demonstration at the upcomingschool board meeting represented the first timethey would participate in a collective action againsta local power structure. That produced a level ofnervousness and doubt reflected in their fear, “willanything happen to me or my child?”Simultaneously, NSA was developing a proposalfor submission to the federal government to createa college access program for neighborhood youth.The proposal required the cooperation and supportof the district superintendent. PAC members wereaware of this, and waited anxiously to see if NSAwould back down from its strong support of thePAC. At the last planning meeting before thedemonstration, NSA’s executive director pledgedthat NSA would follow the PAC’s lead. He saidthat the parents and their struggle to improve PS 64would not be sacrificed for the proposal; theywould remain two separate issues. A significantlevel of trust was solidified that night between

members of the PAC and NSA. As one PACmember said, “our fight was their fight. Theyreally respond to the community. I lived here for24 years and for the first time, it felt like acommunity.” It was clear that PAC members werein full control of their organizing agenda, rangingfrom approving all letters sent to school systemofficials to choosing the tactics to be used at theirpublic actions. NSA’s public declaration that it wasprepared to weather whatever potential storms thePAC’s work might create encouraged the membersto take the risks their words and actions demanded.

The PAC was ready to make the failure of PS64 a public and community issue, and chose thecommunity school board meeting for its firstaction because the superintendent had continued torefuse to meet with them but was required toattend this meeting. Thirty PAC members carriedcolorful signs and placards into the meeting, andthree members spoke for the PAC about theunacceptably low reading scores and several otherissues identified at the community forum,including safety and textbooks. While not yetpresenting specific demands for change, the PACwas publicly holding the superintendentaccountable for the school’s ongoing failure. Onceagain the PAC was told to get involved in theparent association. Despite this dishearteningresponse, the experience provided members with aglimpse of their collective power and inspiredthem to keep working together. At their nextweekly meeting, PAC members began discussinghow to expand their base of community supportand put additional pressure on the district.

Campaign to Remove the Principal: Organizing Around the Biggest Issue FirstTraditionally, organizing proceeds from the

identification of a general problem that getsnarrowed down to a specific issue for which ademand(s) is then developed. Up to this point, thePAC’s work was concentrated in the problemidentification stage. The PAC began to holdbreakfast meetings in NSA’s office for parents ofchildren who attend PS 64, small gatherings inwhich parents shared their individual stories aboutthe school. Parents described instances of their

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The history of Americans formingassociations to pursue collective objectives islong and rich. “When Alexis de Tocquevillevisited the United States in the 1830’s, it was theAmericans’ propensity for civic associations thatmost impressed him as the key to theirunprecedented ability to make democracy work”(Putnam, 1994, p.1). Certainly, communityorganizing can be viewed as one strand of thishistory. While its roots are usually traced back tothe late 19th century settlement housemovement, its modern history starts with thework of Saul Alinsky in the 1930’s in Chicago(Fisher, 1994; Delgado, 1994). Since then andparticularly since the 1960s, groups around thecountry have utilized a community organizingapproach to win improvements in a range ofareas, including the building and renovating ofaffordable housing, environmental justice, andbanking practices. With the growing focus on theneed to improve public schools as part of acomprehensive effort to rebuild low–incomeurban neighborhoods, more community groupsare using a community organizing approach toleverage change in their local schools.

Community organizing is based on thepremise that the quality of life in a neighborhood(or a constituency that transcends geographicalboundaries) is inextricably linked to its politicalpower (Staples,1984; Mondross and Wilson,1994). Community organizing seeks to build thepower of low–income and working–classneighborhoods to improve living conditions by

organizing large numbers of residents to engage incollective action that challenges the existingallocation of resources and services. Thecommunity’s power is realized through the buildingof an organization that is democratically controlledand led by local residents and that over timechanges the relationship between the neighborhoodand the power structures that impact it (Beckwithand Lopez; Bobo, Kendall and Max, 1991).

Actualizing this organizational visionrequires consistent outreach and the building ofrelationships with community residents, thedevelopment of indigenous leaders, and a strongcommitment to democratic decision–making sothat local residents own the group. It alsorequires that neighborhood residents engage intheir own political education. In the context ofschool organizing, this process embodies at leastthe following elements: residents talking withone another about the problems in theneighborhood”s schools; reaching consensus onwhat issue to focus on; conducting researchabout the issue; developing proposals forchange; mobilizing support in the communityand among politicians; engaging in collectiveaction to influence the education powerstructure; and evaluating the effort beforemoving on to the next problem. This dialecticbetween action and reflection contributes to thebuilding of social and political capital, and byextension democratic civic capacity, inlow–income and working–class urbancommunities (Mediratta, 1995).

WHY COMMUNITY ORGANIZING?

children being yelled at by teachers and attackedby other children. They talked about someteachers yelling so loud at children that parentscould hear them at the other end of a long hallway.Particularly disturbing were the incidents ofstrangers wandering the school’s hallways. Parentsalso described the implementation of the school’snew educational programs, including several

reading initiatives aimed at children strugglingwith literacy, in much more critical terms than thesuperintendent and principal, who boasted aboutthem as evidence of the school being on the righttrack. The parents related numerous instances ofnew enrichment classes not being held or meetingso infrequently they were almost meaningless,because of very high teacher turnover and

absenteeism. Finally, parents highlighted the roleof the principal, describing him as inaccessible anddisrespectful. They said he kept parents waitingfor long periods, cancelled numerous meetings,talked down to them and showed little empathy,expressed low expectations for the childrenbecause of their class background, and blamedparents for the low level of student achievement.

The breakfast meetings helped recruit newparents to the PAC and gave the group a fullerpicture of what was happening inside the school.To the PAC’s frustration, however, no single issueemerged that galvanized the group to action. Thethread that did emerge was a school climate thatlacked coherence and leadership. There was agrowing feeling that the principal was a major partof the problem, but members were reluctant totarget him given how difficult it seemed to removea principal.

To help PAC members get a fresh perspectiveon how to proceed in its work, IESP staff suggestedthat PAC members visit a school with the samestudent demographics that had experiencedsubstantial improvement. With IESP’s assistance,the PAC arranged a visit to a school that hadpreviously been on the New York State EducationDepartment’s list of lowest performing schools,referred to as Schools Under Registration Review(SURR). What could the PAC learn from thatschool to help it develop specific demands forimproving PS 64? Through a tour of classroomsand a meeting with the principal, PAC memberssaw a clean well–kept building, an orderly butlively environment, physically comfortable andinviting classrooms, vibrant examples of studentwork on display throughout the school,well–stocked classroom libraries, students activelyengaged in class projects, and a respectful tone withwhich teachers addressed children. One PACmembers summarized her impression by saying:“When you walked into that school, you knew youwere walking into a learning place.” All of thesethings contrasted sharply with the climate andconditions in PS 64. However, one thing stood outfor the visiting PAC members: the role of theprincipal. By all accounts and their ownobservations, the principal had provided theleadership that raised the expectations of the school,

held staff accountable, and synergized the variouselements identified above into an effective schoolculture. While the school was not perfect and hadmuch room for continued improvement, the visitbrought the issue of school leadership into sharpfocus. It was the culminating event that galvanizedthe PAC into its first issue campaign. The PAC wasnow ready to demand the removal of the principal.

In community organizing terms, there was noquestion that the removal of the principal was urgentfor the parents. There was no question it wasspecific. But was it winnable? (Staples, 1997).IESP and NSA staff repeatedly raised concernsabout the PAC taking on such a major issue. To theirknowledge, no community group had successfullyorganized residents to remove the principal of apublic school in NYC, let alone such a youngorganization like the PAC that had no “victories”under its belt. Additionally, only four monthsremained in the school year. Was that enough timeto wage such a difficult campaign? Despite theseconcerns, the members of the PAC were convincedthat their children’s school would not improve withthe current principal and that, therefore, they had nochoice but to fight for his removal.

Once the group reached this consensus, themembers realized they needed to develop aneffective strategy. The research they had beenconducting over the last several months with thehelp of the IESP identified several of the elements.First, they had learned that the DistrictSuperintendent and the New York City SchoolsChancellor had the authority to remove aprincipal; they became the targets of thecampaign. They also discovered the organizinghandle they would consistently use as thejustification and rationale for their demand. Aspart of the change in legislation governing theNYC school system enacted by the New YorkState Legislature several years prior to the PACcampaign, the Chancellor was given the authorityto remove principals for persistent educationalfailure. PAC members decided that if PS 64 didnot meet this criteria, few schools in NYC did.

The PAC developed the remainder of the planat a Saturday all–day retreat facilitated by IESPstaff in which 20 members participated. The planincluded the identification of community and



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political allies, a parent outreach strategy and aseries of public actions to escalate the pressure onthe superintendent and chancellor. The PACkicked off the campaign with a petition driveasking for the removal of the principal. Through“old–fashioned” organizing techniques, includingdoor–to–door canvassing, Sunday presentations atlocal churches, and standing outside the schooland subway stations, the PAC secured over 1,100signatures on the petition.

At the next community school board meeting,the PAC presented those petitions to thesuperintendent along with dozens of incident reportsdescribing a wide range of negative experiencesparents had with the school. The action was coveredin the local and citywide press. But once again, thesuperintendent responded more as a bureaucrat thanas a leader committed to significantly changing thepriorities and power dynamics within the district.Rather than validating parents’ concerns about theschool’s poor educational performance, she retreatedto the safety of the system’s bureaucratic andhistorically inadequate regulatory mechanisms. Shestated she would evaluate the principal of PS 64 atthe same time all principals in the district would beevaluated –– at the end of the school year. The PACremained both frustrated and determined.

Given the superintendent’s refusal to removethe principal, the PAC turned its attention to theNYC Schools Chancellor. The Chancellor and themembers of the Board of Education hold a publicmeeting once a month. In a show of strength, thePAC organized 50 parents and communityresidents to travel from the Bronx to downtownBrooklyn in the middle of rush hour to attend the6pm Board of Education meeting. They presentedthe Chancellor with their petitions in a highlypersonalized and dramatic presentation. Havingread that the Chancellor was an avid gardener, thePAC presented him with two plants, oneflourishing and one wilting, and two wateringcans, one that had no leaks and one filled withholes. They urged the Chancellor to provide thekind of nurturing represented by the intactwatering can so that their children could grow intoproductive and educated citizens. The action,which did not produce an official response fromthe Chancellor, resulted in continued presscoverage of the PAC’s campaign.

The PAC hoped to apply additional pressure tothe Chancellor by reaching out to those sectors thatcould influence him; in organizing terms, these aredeemed secondary or indirect targets (Bobo,Kendall, & Max, 1991). With assistance from IESPstaff, the PAC hired a consultant to write a reportentitled, Persistent Educational Failure and theCase for New Leadership at PS 64. It wasdistributed widely to education policymakers,politicians, advocates and the news media.

PAC members were beginning to feeldiscouraged as the 1997–98 school year waswinding down and school system officialscontinued to ignore their call for the removal of theprincipal. As the PAC was struggling to determineits next action in the campaign, it receivedshocking news: the principal of PS 64 had resigned.

What Has Happened SinceThere was no doubt in the minds of PAC

members that their work was central to theprincipal’s resignation. It turned out that theresignation was actually a demotion to hisprevious position as assistant principal; thesuperintendent assigned him to another school inthe district. The PAC quickly turned its attentionto the selection of the new principal.

The appointment of principals in NYC isgoverned by a twenty–page Board of Educationregulation commonly referred to as the C–30process. It calls for the establishment of aschool–based committee with teachers and amajority of parents that reviews resumes,interviews candidates and selects a list of fivefinalists from which the superintendent choosesthe new principal. PAC members were elected toa majority of the parent seats but did not constitutea majority of the C–30 committee.

By joining the committee, the PAC confrontedthe dilemmas of going inside the system. TheC–30 regulation requires committee members tosign a confidentiality pledge that prohibits themfrom discussing anything about the process withany individual not on the committee. The intent isto keep negative “politics” out of the process––corruption and nepotism in particular. As a result,PAC members on the C–30 committee did not


discuss what was occurring with other PACmembers or at the weekly membership meetings.Consequently, the PAC lost the opportunity for aparticipatory politics in which parents and thecommunity engage in a dialogue with school staffto create a vision for the school they want and theleadership necessary to realize it. The PACcampaign to remove the principal was highlyparticipatory and transparent. The C–30 processwas the antithesis –– highly secretive andinvolving only 15 people in a school with over1,000 children. The PAC as an organization waseffectively sidelined.

The C–30 process concluded with thesuperintendent’s selection of a candidate who wasnot the first choice of the PAC members on thecommittee. After an intense debate, the PACchose not to challenge the decision, given the slimodds of convincing the Chancellor to overturn it.Instead, the PAC began organizing around an issuethat came up repeatedly in their conversations withparents –– school safety. While the new principalinitially responded favorably to the PAC’s safetyproposals, PAC members grew increasinglyfrustrated with her inability to implement themeffectively. For example, supervision of thelunchroom improved for a short period after thePAC raised the issue. Within several weeks,however, the lunchroom reverted to its previouslevel of chaos.

In addition, the principal appointed schoolpersonnel to several positions, including parentliaison and dean for discipline, for which theparents believed they lacked meaningfulexperience and the requisite skills. She alsointroduced several educational programs into theschool that PAC members felt were not justifiedbased on the available evaluation data. While thisprincipal was more accessible and possessed betterinterpersonal skills than the previous one, shelacked the combination of strong leadership skillsand educational vision needed to turn around aschool that has been failing for twenty years. Sixmonths into her tenure, in the Fall of 1999, PACmembers were feeling that nothing substantial hadchanged in the school.

For the purposes of this paper, the narrativeconcludes here. Over the last year, the PAC has

continued to organize with passion anddetermination. Fifteen to twenty members attendweekly membership meetings and many morecome out for forums and demonstrations.Additionally, NSA has been successful in raisingmoney from foundations and now has fourorganizers working with the PAC. In part becauseof this increase in staffing, and because of theconsistently low performance of most District 9schools, the PAC recently initiated a district–widecampaign. Through a highly participatory processinvolving parents and neighborhood residents, thePAC developed a four–point platform that calls forthe adoption of specific programs for professionaldevelopment, conflict resolution training, schoolevaluations and relationships with universities.The PAC organized a 100–person communityforum with residents and local politicians to buildsupport for its platform, and then met with theChancellor and the local superintendent to urge itsimplementation. Over the last four years, the PAChas emerged as a clear political force in its schooldistrict, and has garnered a citywide reputationamong community groups for its effective workand unwavering determination to improve studentachievement.

IMPLICATIONS

The PAC’s success in organizing for the PS 64principal’s removal was a stunning achievementrecognized by other CBOs throughout New YorkCity. While that victory has not yet resulted insignificant improvement in the school, the PAC hashad marked success in strengthening the capacity ofthe community to struggle for its needs and vision.A cadre of indigenous leaders has developed withthe knowledge and confidence to effectivelyquestion and challenge school system officials aboutschool performance outcomes and strategies toimprove student learning. These leaders feel theyhave the right and the responsibility to contest theprevailing distribution of power in their communityas well as in their own organization. They arebecoming subjects of history:

Man’s ontological vocation …is to be aSubject who acts upon and transforms his


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world, and in so doing moves toward evernew possibilities of fuller and richer lifeindividually and collectively. This worldto which he relates is not a static and closedorder, a given reality which man mustaccept and to which he must adjust; rather,it is a problem to be worked and solved. Itis the material to be used by man to createhistory…each man wins back his right tosay his own word, to name the world.(Freire, 1982, pp.12–13)

As a result, the PAC is now part of the politicallandscape of District 9. It is a known force amongcommunity residents, school system officials andlocal politicians.

The commitment and quality of its leadershipis one of the factors that explains how, despite thechallenges it has faced, the PAC has sustained ahigh level of organizing and commitment fromparents and community residents. Another criticalfactor lies in the relationship between the PAC andNSA. Before the PAC was established, NSA hadalready developed a high level of trust withresidents based on the quality of its housingmaintenance and social services, as well as therespect it demonstrated toward individual tenants.As one resident and PAC member described NSA:“They care about people. They just don’t collectrent. If you have a problem, they look to see howthey can solve it with you”. NSA had improvedthe quality of life in the neighborhood andexpanded its stock of social capital.

Using these “features of social organization,such as networks, norms and social trust…” as afoundation, NSA’s support of the PAC’scommunity organizing work represented its firstdeliberate effort to develop the grassroots politicalcapital of the community (Putnam, 1994, p.6).Early in the PAC’s development, NSA proved itscommitment to genuine parent empowermentwhen it supported the PAC in the firstdemonstration at the community school boardmeeting at precisely the time it needed thedistrict’s support for a federal proposal. Thatcommitment has never wavered; NSA has nevertried to control the PAC. On the other hand, thePAC has never engaged in unprincipled orinaccurate attacks on school officials, which might

place NSA in a difficult political position. Theresult is a remarkably high degree of trust betweenthe members of the PAC and the leadership andstaff of NSA. Both remain firmly committed tocontinuing the struggle for better public schools inthe neighborhood.

The trust and safety that exists between thePAC and NSA is mirrored in the relationshipsamong PAC members. In addition to its clear andsimple decision–making process –– all decisionsare made at weekly membership meetings –– thePAC demonstrates consistent respect towardparents and residents. The PAC does not organizearound issues without first engaging in a series ofindividual and group dialogues with parents andresidents to hear what their concerns are or to testout possible new organizing issues. It is thisapproach that “…builds unbreakable bondsbetween people, creating organizational sinew…”enabling the PAC to remain strong in the face ofongoing resistance from those who hold power inthe school system (McNeil, 1995, p.22).

There are several other implications for theexpanding field of community organizing for schoolimprovement that flow out of the PAC’s work:

• CBOs entering this work need a long–termview of school change that recognizessignificant institutional change may takefive to ten years. Such a long–term viewwill promote realistic expectations, preventpremature withdrawal when things seembleak, and necessitate a fundraisingstrategy that is of equal duration.

• For CBOs new to organizing andeducation, the support of the executivedirector is key. The work represents tooradical a shift in how the organizationcarries out its work to manage iteffectively without the strong commitment of the leadership.

• The natural starting point for CBOs liesin their existing relationships with parentsand neighborhood residents, whether it bein after–school programs, day carecenters, or housing that it manages.Interestingly, approximately 25–30% of


active PAC members did not have childrenin PS 64. But as one active member putit, “my son didn’t attend PS 64 but he wasin the NSA after–school program. NSAreally serves the community and I am partof the community.” Additional communityoutreach strategies should be developedto supplement these initial ones.

• The role of training in school organizingmay be more critical than in other kinds oforganizing. While the limitations ofstandardized testing should beacknowledged, school performance datacan be a powerful tool for legitimatingparents’ concerns. As the PAC experiencepoints out, rather than demoralize parentsand make them feel hopeless, data cangalvanize them into action. In addition,visits to successful schools can inspire andinform parents’ sense of what to fight for.

This latter point is connected to the role oftechnical assistance. The work of IESP’sCommunity Involvement Program with NSA andother groups in NYC and other large cities suggeststhat school improvement is among the most difficultissues around which to organize. The schoolsystems in which these groups operate are governedby complex structures that cede authority to severaldifferent bodies and individuals; this makes itdifficult for organizing groups to define targets andhold them accountable. Additionally, schools witha history of failure often have dysfunctional culturesthat are quite resistant to change and can easilyderail school reform initiatives. Moreover,strategies for transforming and building the capacityof individual low–performing schools often bumpup against system–wide barriers over whichindividual community groups have little power.Given these obstacles, CBOs that have littleexperience with community organizing techniquesand/or strategies for school reform will benefit fromexternal support developed through dialoguebetween the group and a technical assistanceprovider. IESP’s work with NSA and the PAC wasguided by respect for their experience andperspective as well as a commitment to findingcollaborative and participatory ways for IESP’sexpertise to inform how the work developed.

The PAC’s work also raises several importantdilemmas for the field. The PAC story wouldconstitute an unequivocal success if the removal ofthe principal had spurred an effective schoolimprovement strategy that resulted in significantadvances in student achievement. In actuality, thestory reflects the overall stage of development ofthe new field of community organizing for schoolimprovement, which is only about ten years old.There are numerous examples of organizing workthat have resulted in the removal of perceivedobstacles to change within a school or district, butthere are fewer examples in which that has beenfollowed by the successful implementation of aschool improvement strategy resulting in thetransformation of the school into a thrivinglearning community. The continuing work of theNew Settlement Apartments Parent ActionCommittee is no exception.

The PAC started from outside the system; itwas situated within an independent organizationnot part of the school system. Yet it did not startout making demands on school officials; insteadthe PAC began with questions. The defensiveresponse of the various officials within the system–– principal, superintendent, community schoolboard, and parent association leaders –– propelledthe PAC into a more confrontational posture.Could that dynamic have been avoided? As longas the PAC focused on student outcome questions,how likely is it that school officials would havereacted differently?

There is clearly a significant tradeoff for a CBOworking outside the political parameters establishedand recognized by the school system. That systemlabels any insurgent group as “outsiders” anddefines them as illegitimate. The group is thenmired in a constant struggle for parent/communityaccess to and accountability from the schools. Thisdynamic also presents enormous difficulty inbuilding relationships with teachers. When a CBOtargets a school or district for poor studentoutcomes, no matter how hard the group tries not toindict the staff, the teachers often interpret it as anattack on their competence and professionalism.That was the case with the PAC. Can that beavoided? How can CBOs reach out to teachers tobegin a constructive dialogue about schoolimprovement? Should CBOs reach out to teachers

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at the beginning of the organizing process? CanCBOs and teacher unions forge collaborativerelationships to advance school improvement? Theanswers to these questions are critical to the nextstage of development for the field. They willdetermine whether community organizing toimprove low–performing schools in low–incomeurban neighborhoods is a meaningful alternative tothe official parent groups established by the schoolsystem, as well as to the parent choice paradigmpresented by conservative forces as the marketsolution to public education’s problems.

The history of community organizing has beenshaped by a “direct and dialectical relationshipbetween the national context and local communityorganizing efforts…what happened at the nationallevel substantially determined the overall nature ofcommunity organizing” (Fisher, 1994b, p.12).Current school organizing is no exception. Whilethis paper explores the role of local communityorganizing efforts to improve failing publicschools, it also reveals its limitations. Without amass social movement to challenge the prevailingdistribution of educational resources and power,neighborhood–based school improvementorganizing in low–income urban communitiesfaces a tough road. The development of thepolitical will to ensure a significant improvementin public education in low–income neighborhoodsand communities of color must build on, but gobeyond the local efforts of community–basedorganizations like New Settlement Apartments.

In NSA's case, there are hopeful signs that thismovement may be emerging. With the IESP'sassistance, NSA has reached out to six other CBOsin District 9 to form a CBO collaborative forschool improvement. Each CBO will organizePAC–like parent organizing groups at the schoolsin their section of the district. Additionally, theseCBO–affiliated parent organizing groups will forma federation to address district–wide issues. Thecollaborative is planning a Spring 2001 parent

conference to publicly announce the formationof the collaborative and is raising the funds tohire organizers.

The next level of movement building is takingplace at the citywide level. The NYC ParentOrganizing Consortium is a five year–old coalitionof ten community organizing groups working onsystem–wide policy reform, with the NSA ParentAction Committee as the newest member. Thehope is that the new parent organizing groups thatemerge out of the District 9 CBO collaborativewill also join the Consortium. Finally, a newstatewide coalition composed of a wide range andnumber of community groups, unions, andadvocacy groups has emerged to demand asignificant increase in New York State'sinvestment in public education.

Public education is currently at the top of thenation’s political agenda. While conservativeforces have launched an effective attack on publiceducation’s capacity for improvement, there areopportunities to develop a progressive alternative.As the teacher unions increasingly recognize thatthe improvement of low–performing schools islinked to the future of public education, can theybecome a more effective force for school reform?With the significant rebuilding of the housingstock in many low–income urban neighborhoods,can community–based organizations act on theirunderstanding that the long–term health of theirneighborhoods is inextricably linked to the qualityof the public schools by organizing parents andresidents into a potent political force? Are themore progressive sectors of the labor movementready to organize to make the preservation andimprovement of public education for theirmembers and working people in general an issueof social justice? Can those strands come togetherto ensure that American public education deliverson its historic promise to provide a qualityeducation for all our children?


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