Organizing for Educational Justice: The Campaign for Public School Reform in the South Bronx

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Since the 1980s, strategies for improving public education in America have focused on either competition through voucher programs and charter schools or standardization as enacted into federal law through No Child Left Behind. These reforms, however, have failed to narrow the performance gap between poor urban students and other children. In response, parents have begun to organize local campaigns to strengthen the public schools in their communities. One of the most original, successful, and influential of these parent-led campaigns has been the Community Collaborative to Improve District 9 (CC9), a consortium of six neighborhood-based groups in the Bronx.In Organizing for Educational JusticeSituating this case within a wider exploration of parent participation in educational reform, Fabricant explains why CC9 succeeded and other parent-led movements did not. He also examines the ways in which the movement effectively empowered parents by rigorously ensuring a democratic process in making decisions and, more broadly, an inclusive organizational culture. As urban parents across America search for ways to hold public schools accountable for their failures, this book shows how the success of the CC9 experience can be replicated elsewhere around the country.

Author Bio

Michael B. Fabricant is professor at the Hunter College School of Social Work, City University of New York. He has also served for the past ten years as the executive officer of the Ph.D. program in social welfare at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His most recent books include The Welfare State Crisis and the Transformation of Social Service Work and Settlement Houses under Siege: The Struggle to Sustain Community Organizations in New York City.