Connie Matthiessen has a new article in Inside Philanthropy on the role of funders in resisting the right-wing backlash against anti-racist policies and curriculum in public schools. Our own OTL Network Director Michael Wotorson was interviewed about our work with HEAL Together, as was our longtime grantee partner Letha Muhammad of the Education Justice Alliance.
Between January and March of this year, we’ve given $969,000 across twenty-one grants to support parent, youth, and community organizations working to defend and improve public schools and fight for race and gender justice in their communities. Our grants this quarter have gone to longtime Schott partners like the Alliance for Quality Education and Journey for Justice, as well as new grantees like Arise and Youth Organizers United.
Letha Muhammad is the director of the Education Justice Alliance (EJA). She leads the Raleigh, North Carolina-based alliance of parents, students and community groups on the front lines of community-centered resistance to “anti-CRT” campaigns. Working together for racial justice, they focus on equitable school funding and an end to the school-to-prison pipeline.
The reactionary backlash against racial justice and LGBTQ movements over the past few years has once again put public schools center stage. Where did this backlash originate, and why is so much of it focused on “Critical Race Theory”?
Race Forward and NYU Metro Center, in partnership with other H.E.A.L. (Honest Education Action & Leadership) Together partners including the Schott Foundation, is offering a series of public virtual trainings for students, educators, and parents to fight for strong, equitable public schools and a multiracial democracy. The H.E.A.L. Together initiative is a new project that partners with on-the-ground organizers to build power to counter the anti-CRT movement in our schools, better connect our communities, and advance a vision of justice that works for everyone.
Longtime Schott grantee partner the Journey for Justice Alliance (J4J), a coalition of organizations across more than 30 cities, has its roots in education justice, but in recent years has begun to articulate a vision that encompasses not just the classroom and schoolhouse, but the entire social community our children and parents live within.
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H.E.A.L. (Honest Education Action & Leadership) Together is a new initiative spearheaded by Race Forward with coalition partners including the NYU Metro Center, Schott Foundation, Alliance for Quality Education, and Center for Popular Democracy that is building a movement of students, educators, and parents in school districts across the United States who believe that an honest, accurate and fully funded public education is the foundation for a just, multiracial democracy.
The Schott Foundation for Public Education and NYU Metro Center, in partnership with Race Forward’s H.E.A.L. Together campaign are providing rapid response financial and technical assistance to parent, youth and community organizing groups facing aggressive attacks against public education and equitable curriculum. Now is the time for philanthropy to act – it is our moment to support grassroots organizing to challenge those threatening our democracy and turn up the fight for equitable and anti-racist schools and communities. Public education and democracy need our protection.
Last week, my colleagues Lori Bezahler and Glenn Harris crafted a very thoughtful and substantive piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, “MacKenzie Scott’s Gifts Are Game Changers for Racial-Justice Groups. But Now We Need to Do More.” They are right in highlighting the fact that for decades, nameless and faceless people have been sustaining democratic practices and advancing racial justice by organizing in communities and states across our country. From a return-on-investment point of view, these organizations like the Alliance for Quality Education in New York, Education Justice Alliance in North Carolina, ARISE in Providence, Rhode Island, Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children and Boston Education Justice Alliance consistently do more with less and produce results.
