Stephanie Alvarado, a youth leader with Voices of Youth in Chicago Education and the Southwest Organizing Project, is one of six Latino/a students featured in a new PBS documentary about the dropout crisis and its effect on low-income students of color. Learn more about the documentary, “The Graduates/Los Graduados,” here on PBS!
At the 2013 OTL Organizing Summit in Los Angeles, grassroots education organizers participated in a training hosted by the New Organizing Institute. They were introduced to a powerful narrative structure called the Story of Self, the Story of Us, and the Story of Now, a model developed by Marshall Ganz that helps organizers learn to … Continued
Students from the Morris Campus Student Leadership Council (at Bronx International High School in NYC) came together to write and create this video to promote peer mediation at their school. The song is called “Talk It Out,” and the video was featured during the Youth Speak Out session at the recent AFT Civil, Human and … Continued
In October, the OTL Campaign partnered with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Education Association and Communities for Public Education Reform to host the AFT’s Civil, Human and Women’s Rights Conference in Los Angeles. At the opening town hall on Oct. 4th, participants got fired up with this video chronicling the rising grassroots and … Continued
"Community schools" are a new model for public education focused on building community partnerships to ensure all students have access to the types of wraparound academic, social and health supports they need to succeed in school. This short animated video shows how Oakland Unified School District is transforming its schools to be community hubs offering … Continued
Ensuring that students are reading at grade level by the third grade is a crucial milestone for assuring their long term academic success, because third grade is when most students transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” AR Governor Mike Beebe declared Aug. 12-16 Arkansas Campaign for Grade-Level Reading Week, and the campaign … Continued
Padres y Jovenes Unidos, a Denver-based OTL ally, successfully pushed for legislation limiting the role of police in schools. The group was featured in a video series by the Public Interest Projects’ Just and Fair Schools Fund, which profiles groups across the country who are making real headway in the fight to end harsh discipline … Continued
Growing Fairness is an upcoming documentary film, workshop series, and online toolkit resource for school communities to use as they begin the project of implementing restorative justice in classrooms. It tells the story of school climate, alternatives to punitive discipline, and the real impact of zero-tolerance on young people and school communities in New York … Continued
In this video from the Advancement Project, students talk about how harsh, zero-tolerance discipline policies are criminalizing them and pushing them out of school. The video was released ahead of the Advancement Project’s national convening, "We Can Do Better: Collaborating to Reform School Discipline and Accountability."
Small class size isn’t about protecting teachers’ jobs or making their work easier — it’s about providing every student with quality attention in the classroom. Steve Zimmer, Board Member of the Los Angeles Unified School District and a former teacher, asks why we tolerate or dismiss crowded public school classrooms when charters and private schools … Continued
