Five Public Engagement Efforts Move Forward In Support of High Standards

In mid-August, the Public Education Network (PEN) announced five three-year funding awards to "build public responsibility to ensure that all children have the supports they need to achieve to high academic standards." The five initiatives, chosen after a competitive six-month planning process, are in Durham, North Carolina, Portland, Oregon, Mobile, Alabama, and statewide efforts in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Each of the five projects has already: assessed the local or statewide context in which it will operate; identified unique goals and strategies; and determined how it will measure success. In Durham, the initiative will focus on closing the opportunity and achievement gaps among ethnic groups, a goal that the school district is also pursuing, and will use the Study Circle Model for community organizing. Similarly, the Portland initiative will emphasize closing the performance gap. The Portland Schools Foundation plans to work with parents, community members and the Portland Public Schools to improve data analysis and increase the school system's ability to turn around struggling schools and replicate high-achieving schools. Leaders of the Portland initiative already have experience working with the mayor, the Oregon Business Council, and with school leadership teams at the city's 12 high schools on related projects.

The Mobile initiative is being undertaken in a community discouraged by decades of under funding and under achievement. In 2001, a funding crisis developed due to state revenue shortfalls. In response, the voters recently passed the first school tax increase in 40 years. The Mobile Area Education Foundation plans to conduct "community listening forums" and town meetings throughout Mobile County and to collaborate with The Education Trust and the Mobile school system on aligning curriculum and teaching to state standards.

In New Jersey, the successful Abbott lawsuit has highlighted the plight of over 300,000 students in 30 urban districts and is extricating funds – from a reluctant state government – for pre-school, adequate facilities and other crucial programs in these districts. The Patterson Education Fund plans to organize Local Education Foundations (LEFs) in 10 of the Abbott communities to increase local civic capacity. Then, building on that capacity, they will form a consortium of the LEFs to influence education policy and Abbott implementation decisions at the state level.

In Pennsylvania, LEFs in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Lancaster, and the Mon Valley are joining together in a Standards and Accountability Initiative and will collaborate with additional groups, including the Education Policy and Leadership Center, the Pennsylvania School Reform Network, and Every Kid Counts - Good Schools Pennsylvania. The LEFs organizing principle for their project is taken from the New York Campaign for Fiscal Equity's summary of a state's responsibility to its children: "The standard to which the state holds all students is the standard that the state must ensure all students the opportunity to reach." Interestingly, although lawsuits attempting to gain adequate and equitable education funding in Pennsylvania have been rejected by the state's supreme court, initiative leaders have found that successful litigations in other states, citing Kentucky, New Jersey and New York, have raised public expectations and put pressure on the legislature to improve achievement and fairness in funding.

With three-year grants from PEN, the organizers of these five initiatives are optimistic about making significant progress in their communities and states. Nonetheless, most of their plans foresee a need for advocacy beyond the three-year time frame. Therefore, they intend to strengthen their organizational capacity for the long term.

Prepared August 22, 2002