Critical
Exposure
What is Critical Exposure?
Critical Exposure is a national organization dedicated to using students'
documentary photography and first-person narrative to build public demand
for quality education and to support campaigns to secure more resources for
all public schools.
Issues
Before co-founding Critical Exposure, Heather Rieman and Adam Levner held
jobs in public policy and education advocacy respectively, working from different
perspectives to address the issue of inequalities in public education. Through
their work, they came to realize that “it is incredibly difficult to convey
to people who are not actually involved in the schools just how bad the disparities
between schools can be, and how much that affects the education that all
kids are supposed to receive,” Levner says. Critical Exposure believes that
an increase in public awareness and engagement is necessary in order to create
systematic change to the education system.
Getting Started
Rieman and Levner, both amateur photographers, thought up Critical Exposure
in 2003 based on their experience working in education. Before beginning
a successful pilot campaign in Baltimore in the summer of 2004, they spent
the first year talking to people and planning what exactly that campaign
should be. Some of their strategies for getting their project off the ground
were:
Talking to stakeholders. Throughout
the first year, Rieman and Levner spoke to a large number of people in order
to better formulate their goals and strategies. The aim of these conversations
was to:
 Find partners. Many of the original conversations focused on
getting additional support for Critical Exposure through creating partnerships,
for example with advocacy organizations and after-school programs. Rieman
and Levner contacted individuals and organizations who were willing to
work to help refine the program and provide access to the students and
resources needed for the project.
Assess needs. Another
goal of these conversations was to determine how their project could be helpful
to other education reform efforts. Rieman and Levner spoke to leaders of
advocacy organizations, education policy makers, and the legislative staff
of elected officials, as well as teachers and administrators, to find out
what tools they needed in order to advance their efforts,
and how Critical Exposure could fill
that need.
Planning a pilot project . Rieman and
Levner decided to pilot their project for two primary reasons: they hoped
to assuage the concerns of potential partners and funding sources, and they
also wanted to address their own questions about which aspects of the project
would be successful before trying to implement the program on a national
scope. Levner said that he and Rieman “realized that many people had a very
hard time visualizing what this would look like because this type of project
had not been done before in the context of education reform.”
Choosing
a location. Baltimore
was chosen as the site for the pilot program because it had ideal conditions
for the Critical Exposure campaign. Not only did the city's public schools
exemplify the problems facing under-funded urban schools, but Baltimore
was also a center of education activism because of legislative and judicial
efforts to increase resources for Baltimore schools.
Finding local
partners. Rieman and Levner began working primarily
with an organization in Baltimore called Community Law In Action. Through
this organization, they were able to reach many other partners. Rieman
says that using the preexisting networks that Community Law In Action had “was
essential because it allowed the two of us to just put our ideas out there
and automatically gain access to other people who were also interested
in the project.”
Campaign Goals
Critical Exposure's goal is to improve students' educational opportunities
by helping promote policies that will increase adequacy and equity in public
schools. Rieman and Levner hope their campaign aids local and state-wide
education advocacy organizations in their efforts by providing them with
students' documentary photographs and narratives as powerful tools to support
their case and strengthen their efforts.
Meeting
local needs. Because Critical Exposure
works with students and organizations in a particular community,
many of the campaign's goals will be dictated by local needs. For example,
Rieman said that when they were working in Baltimore, they catered
their goals and focus to the needs of the specific effort going on
in Baltimore at that moment, which was primarily the ACLU's work focusing
on the dismal state of school facilities in Baltimore.
Critical Exposure has short-term as well as long-term goals.
Short-term
goals. These include providing
students the training and tools they need to photograph the conditions
in their schools and to write first-person narratives about the photographs,
creating an exhibit of the photographs and narratives, and focusing
public attention on the conditions in public schools through the use
of media and public outreach.
Long-term
goals. These include working with local leaders
to design a plan for using the Critical Exposure images and narratives
to support ongoing campaigns based on the specific needs of the area.
Once Critical Exposure expands its project to other locations nationally,
another long-term goal is to develop a network of communities engaged in
similar education reform efforts, creating a national dialogue on these issues.
Methods
Some of the effective methods that Critical Exposure has employed are:
Using
existing networks. Rieman and
Levner did not have direct access to students or facilities, nor did
they have their own advocacy organization, so working with a large
number of partners was essential to the campaign. Rieman and Levner
partnered with programs that work with students, primarily but not
exclusively after-school programs, to implement Critical Exposure's
program in a way that worked with their partners' structure and activities. Using existing networks also allows the Critical Exposure projects to have
longevity beyond the Critical Exposure workshops and beyond the exhibition
of the photographs. While Rieman and Levner plan to stay engaged in the communities
they work with, they also expect that much of the follow-up will take place
through the local organizations that they work with. Their partnering organizations,
such as the after-school programs, have the infrastructure in place to continue
working with their students to use the skills gained through Critical Exposure
and advocate for school reform. Working
with local leaders. Throughout
the process, Rieman and Levner were in close communication with many
local leaders in education advocacy in order to determine how Critical
Exposure could contribute to existing campaigns. Levner says, “The key for us is
really continuing to talk to people, finding out who needs what and trying
to have our work be as useful as possible.” For example, in addition
to a month-long exhibit of photographs and narratives that the students
put together for a local art gallery, Rieman and Levner have been working
with other advocates to determine ideal opportunities for using the photographs
and narratives in other settings and mediums to increase their impact. Letting
students lead. At
the early stages of planning, Rieman and Levner did not intend to include
students as such an essential component of this campaign. “Soon, though,
we realized that students are the ones who are in these schools every day,
they know their schools well, they are the experts on what it's like to
be there,” said
Rieman. Because they were working with a wide range of students, from 3rd
to 12th graders, Rieman and Levner catered their workshops and trainings
to each individual group of students. For example, with younger students
they conducted workshops every week for several months, whereas with some
of the older students, some of whom were already involved in advocacy issues,
workshops took place just a handful of times in order to “give them the
basics and let them run with it”, says Levner. Rieman and Levner left room in the project for student input and direction.
For example, Critical Exposure was originally aimed at documenting only
the negative conditions found in public schools; however, many of the
students insisted on documenting the positives in their schools as well.
They found that although students are aware of their schools' shortcomings,
they are also often extremely proud of their schools as well. The inclusion
of both positive and negative images and stories in the exhibit ended up
bringing a lot of strengths to the case for school reform. Rieman says that
the juxtaposition of positives and negatives made the exhibit much more compelling,
as it illustrated the tremendous potential for positive growth in the
public schools. Levner added that “it also made the exhibit much less threatening to education officials,” opening
doors for conversations that otherwise likely would not have occurred. Engaging
legislators and officials. Throughout
the process, Rieman and Levner made an effort to reach out to legislators
and education officials. Policymakers were invited to see the exhibit and
speak to the students. The CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools came to
the exhibit with a number of school administrators. She viewed the
exhibit and discussed the issues involved with students. Some of the
students went to Annapolis to show their work to state legislators.
In a committee hearing about an education bill, one State Senator made
photocopies of the images and passed them around to each member of
the committee. Rieman and Levner hope to increase the impact of the
students' work by continuing to present it in different mediums, for
example in the form of briefing books for legislators. Impact
Teaching skills, inspiring students. Each
of the students involved in the Critical Exposure program learned about documentary
photography, improved their writing skills, and learned about how to advocate
for change. Many of the students were extremely enthusiastic about engaging
the important issue of school reform through Critical Exposure, and were
excited by the opportunity to learn about photography, display their work
to the community, and be featured in newspapers. A number of students have
said that they plan to continue using the skills they learned through Critical
Exposure, either by working with photography or continuing their involvement
in advocacy efforts.
Engaging the public.
Exhibiting
students' work. The exhibit was a public, month-long
showing at a local art gallery and has since been shown in many public
settings throughout Baltimore. The exhibits feature the students'
photographs combined with statistics about the state of public education
in Baltimore and the students' own narratives putting the pictures in
context and addressing how the situations portrayed impact their education.
When the exhibit first opened, there was a program with a panel of local
education experts speaking about the photographs and educating the public
about the broader policy issues that the pictures illustrate. The media
coverage of the Critical Exposure program and the exhibit was extensive,
drawing even more attention to the program and the students' work.
Inspiring
advocacy. Because the aim of the exhibit is not only
to increase public awareness but also to inspire public engagement, an
advocacy component was included at the exhibit, providing an opportunity
for people to contact their legislators or city council members about the
issue of school reform. By making the connection between awareness of the
problem and action, Critical Exposure works to inspire the public to become
actively engaged in the issues illustrated by students' pictures.
Influencing legislators. In addition
to the public engagement efforts of the exhibits, many students working with
Critical Exposure became very involved in advocacy efforts. For example,
a group of students trained by Critical Exposure went to Annapolis to share
their pictures with legislators. Even after the exhibit was over, a core
group of students decided to continue working on the advocacy efforts they
began with Critical Exposure, possibly planning to go back to Annapolis next
year to show legislators once again the importance of education funding.
For more information about Critical Exposure or to involve Critical Exposure's
work in your community, visit www.criticalexposure.org
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