Videos
The new book Lift Us Up, Don't Push Us Out! features voices from the frontlines of a growing movement for educational justice across the United States. Organizers and activists recount their journeys to movement building, lift up victories and successes, and offer practical organizing strategies and community-based alternatives to traditional education reform and privatization schemes.
The last few decades of disinvestment and privatization have devastated public schools across the country, especially those in poor and distressed neighborhoods and communities of color. But we shouldn’t simply try to roll back the clock: long before the present crisis many schools were already failing the children who needed an opportunity to learn the most.
Out of that failure a growing movement of parents, youth, educators and community advocates are charting a better path forward: community schools. The community schools model holds at its core both research-proven methods and hard-won local insight from community members about what is most needed locally, which is what makes it a powerful evidence-based equity strategy!
Schott Foundation President & CEO Dr. John H. Jackson talks about the importance of love and happiness as we work give students the opportunities they need.
For over two decades the Schott Foundation has been a bridge, connecting philanthropy with community to resource broad based community-led movements for education equity. Part of building and reinforcing that bridge includes challenging structural racism in philanthropy and uplifting solutions rooted in equity through critical and thoughtful dialogue and trust in the power of community voices and community organizing for sustained change. We explored the unique journeys of three white philanthropic leaders striving toward race, gender and economic equity. Participants talked about when they first got “woke,” what they consider their role in philanthropy to be, how they have dealt with mistakes and criticism along the way, where they go for resources and support in their journey, how they hold themselves accountable to communities of color, and much more!
The public school is the cornerstone of community empowerment and advancement in American society. However, there are some who advocate for handing these public institutions and dollars over to private interests — despite overwhelming data showing such strategies simply don't live up to their promises and run counter to core educational values of equity and opportunity.
In the midst of a continuous push for privatization from Washington, DC and many state capitals, it's more important than ever to ask, "When it comes to supporting public schools, does my state make the grade?"
Schott partnered with Youth On Board for our latest webinar:
In order to win in the current political climate, our social movements need to be more effective, more resilient, and more rooted in collective healing than ever before. Youth on Board’s ListeningWorks project is harnessing the power of radical listening to strengthen social movements, build bridges between divided communities and create a shared vision of liberation. Using our signature Action & Support model—refined over twenty five years and based on radical listening, restorative justice and social emotional learning—we are building a national cohort of movement builders, civic leaders and community organizers dedicated to transforming healing and support systems for themselves and deepening engagement with their communities using a relational and love-centered approach. We invite you to learn about our model and join our efforts to heal movements and communities across the country.
When parents, youth, community members and educators join together, they can move mountains.
From West Virginia to Oklahoma and a growing list of states across the country, educators are making demands that go far beyond fair wages and benefits: they are advocating for newer textbooks, smaller class sizes and pushing back against the austerity measures and harmful policies that undermine student-centered learning environments. Local communities are locking arms with educators and joining those efforts.
Today there are an estimated 30,000 officers now in schools, up from roughly 100 in the 1970s. Although the stated purpose of these officers is to maintain a sense of safety, a very troubling consequence is greater arrest rates and referrals for minor disruptive behaviors — with especially harsh results for girls of color.
Every day, Native youth and communities demonstrate the ability to thrive and persevere despite historical, structural and institutional inequities. Native youth have shown that they are invested in a better future – not just for Native people, but for all Americans. By working in partnership, funders believe that we will see Native communities make great strides in healing, restoration, and advancement of our greatest resource – our youth.