Citizens of Ohio have launched a new organization to support strong public schools.
Is there an organization like this in your community or state?
Please let me know.
I will compile a list and circulate it to everyone.
From Ohio comes this good news:
Ohio’s Teachers, Parents, Superintendents, School Board members and Citizens have launched a new movement ~ Strong Schools / Strong Communities
Strong Schools Strong Communities is a non-partisan movement dedicated to informing and engaging Ohioans at the community level to understand, appreciate and support our system of common public schools.
Visit our website at http://www.strongschoolsohio.com
Friend us on Face Book at : http://www.strongschoolsohio.com
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Save our Schools New Jersey, a non partisan grass roots organization, is over 9000 members strong and fighting every day across the state to protect and improve public education. Always happy to lend a hand and learn from like groups in other states. Way to Ohio!!!!!
Susan, are you familiar with this movement. Sounds like a new beginning. Kay
This is great to hear Deborah, I have followed the Save our Schools movement, admire all your organization is doing and would love to learn more about grass roots action on the ground to educate the public about truth underneath the privatization of our public schools for profit movement at the expense of our children and their futures. I have just started a blog:
Maureen Reedy ~ Believing in Teachers, Believing in Public Education ~ Ohio Teacher of the Year, 2002.
Here is link: http://maureenreedy.wordpress.com/
Keep in touch and let’s help each other spread the word that we BELIEVE in Teachers & we BELIEVE in Public Education and we are working together to Save our Schools!
A new group starting in Muskegon, Michigan: Citizens to Preserve Public Education. We are still working on getting our Facebook page up. We have the first public school district that is now run by a for-profit company. We are trying to get information about it and disseminate it.
The Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Reform (CCJEF), a 504(c)(3) founded in 2004, is a broad-based coalition of municipalities and local boards of education, statewide professional education associations, teacher and other unions, nonprofit advocacy organizations, parents and schoolchildren aged 18 or older, and concerned CT taxpayers. Member school communities are home to about half of CT’s public school students, including more than three-fourths of the state’s minority students, those from low-income families, and students from homes where English is not the primary language. In 2005 CCJEF filed an adequacy and equity lawsuit against the state, which case is scheduled for trial in mid-2014. As the catalyst/founder for CCJEF, I built on the excellent advocacy/litigation coalition model of that led by friend Bill Phillis of the CEASF and have also benefitted over the years from the friendship and mentoring of NYC’s Campaign for Fiscal Equity advocacy/outreach folks and those at the Education Law Center (Abbott Districts) in NJ. Grassroots organizing, public education, policy research, and political advocacy are very hard work — and networks of friends doing similar work in other states is both instructive and revitalizing. And that’s precisely also the tremendous day-to-day value I find in your blog and other publications, Diane! Thank you — all of you.
If we analyze results from CFE, OCEASF, and ELC, along with McGuffy & Hancock, Leandro and Flores and Reed, are we sure negotiated agreements are compatible with sound democratic oversight of public schools?
Also, have all the states involved address the constructive suggestions raised by Dr. Ravitch in Death and Life? How have they filled in the missing pieces from Dr. Ravitch’s policy experiences?
Finally, how is this advocacy reconciled with officeholders oaths of office and made available to improve school governance?
Should have mention Bill Phillis, Exec Dir of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding led the landmark DeRolph school finance lawsuit against that state back in the mid-1990s.
http://ilraiseyourhand.org/
http://www.parents4teachers.net/
Raise Your Hand and Parents 4 Teachers are solely education oriented organizations in Chicago. They worked with established community organizations in Chicago to support publicly funded public education and continue to address issues of adequate funding and transparency in Chicago Public Schools.
Indiana Coalition for Public Education
Illinois has the Raise Your Hand Coalition.
Are any of these groups leveraging the best available high school civics curricula to advance their goals? That would affirm the organization’s faith in the value and adequacy of their public schools! (Cf/AKA “eating their own dog food”).
FWIW:
Ohio Department of Education
2011 Model Curriculum: PK-12 Social Studies
American Government
Public policy issues are matters of discussion and debate related to the functions of government. They frequently revolve around problems the government is attempting to address and the projected consequences of public policy decisions.
Examples of public policy at different levels of government by different branches of government include:
– Federal Executive–the Department of State, which advises the president on foreign policy and directs activities of embassies in foreign countries;
– Federal Legislative–the Congressional Budget Office, which provides analyses of economic and budgetary data;
– State Legislative–the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, which assists in drafting legislation;
– State Judicial–the Ohio Courts of Common Pleas, which apply sentencing guidelines for convicted felons; and
– Local Legislative/Executive–County commissions, which determine and grant tax abatements.
The complexity of public policy issues may involve multiple levels and branches of government. These levels and branches may engage in collaboration or conflict as they attempt to address public policy issues e.g., 2010 Federal Race-to-the-Top education grants, …
“eating their own dog food”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food
(For readers not familiar with the phrase)
Dr. Rusty Clifford named Ohio Superintendent of the year
– The district uses the same quality improvement framework as Montgomery County, Maryland
– The district turned down $479,358 in Race to the Top funds
– Their initial RttT SoW is on the web: [DOC]045054-West Carrollton City – SOW.doc
…
“I cannot imagine a more deserving individual for the honor of being named Ohio Superintendent of the Year,” [Senate Education Committee Chairwoman] Lehner wrote in her [recommendation] letter. “When I need an educator’s perspective on a pending piece of education legislation, Rusty is one of the first people I turn to.”
Diane, Thank you so much for being a connector of what is happening in fighting back to defeat the enemies of public education. We in Philadelphia have organized PCAPS (Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools). PCAPS is composed of parents, school workers, students, and community organizations and individuals. We held a conference for all stakeholders in September and have been collecting surveys to help in creating our alternative plan to the one advocated by the School Reform Commission which hired the Boston Consulting Group with no community input and lots of secrecy. The BCG plan? closing schools and turning them into charters.
I really appreciate your work and how it supports all of us in the struggle to defend public education. Keep up the great work! It’s totally appreciated out here on the front lines!!
Karel Kilimnik
Hi Diane, we’ve just launched Public Schools First North Carolina (PSFNC), a nonprofit, nonpartisan statewide grassroots organization advocating for a system of high-quality, equitable, and diverse public schools for all students. We’re looking to build a network of grassroots groups across the state to fight the “usual suspects” of privatization: education savings accounts/vouchers/tax credits. Our Web site is: http://www.publicschoolsfirstnc.org We’ve posted our first video there too.
We have started Clintonville Go Public (https://www.facebook.com/ClintonvilleGoPublic) which seeks to support and enhance our neighborhood public schools here in the Clintonville neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio!