FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

communications@schottfoundation.org
617-876-7700

In the face of increasing threats to student civil rights throughout the nation, the Schott Foundation for Public Education has joined with more than two dozen leading education and civil rights groups to launch the Education Civil Rights Alliance (ECR Alliance).

Schools should serve, educate, empower and be safe for all students, yet all across America today, far too many students face bullying and other barriers to education based on their race, religion, national origin, gender identity, disability, first language, or sexual orientation. Immigrant children continue to be illegally denied the right to enroll in school. Increasingly divisive and hateful rhetoric and growing anti-Muslim and white nationalist sentiment only serve to exacerbate the threats to already marginalized vulnerable students.

“The Schott Foundation has worked closely with civil rights organizations throughout our twenty-five year history,” Schott President and CEO Dr. John H. Jackson said. “Public education is at the center of today’s civil rights struggles. Every child deserves a fair and substantive opportunity to learn in a supportive and well-funded public school, and we have joined the ECR Alliance to help make that a reality.

As a founding member of the ECR Alliance, the Schott Foundation brings experience in funding and strengthening grassroots, community-led movements for opportunity and equity in public education, as well as policy and litigation strategies to support the children, parents, educators and communities most impacted by educational injustice.

The ECR Alliance will ensure the civil rights of marginalized students remain protected by providing resources to help parents, educators, school districts, and advocates protect students’ civil rights, supporting enforcement actions at the state and local level when schools districts and states fail to do so, working to raise public awareness of these challenges facing students, and serving as a deterrent to discriminatory and illegal behavior.

This alliance includes powerful community groups, experienced educators, the nation’s largest teachers unions, accomplished legal organizations, influential national associations, civil rights organizations, and government agencies committed to ensuring that schools serve, educate, empower and are safe for all students. Members of the ECR Alliance have extensive experience in, and a deep commitment to, protecting students’ civil rights.

The Schott Foundation for Public Education aims to develop and strengthen a broad-based and representative movement to achieve fully resourced, quality PreK-12 public education. Schott’s core belief is that well-resourced grassroots campaigns can lead to systemic change in the disparities poor children and children of color face in our nation’s schools. In helping to build these campaigns into a movement, Schott recognizes its pivotal role as both funder and advocate to ensure that all children have an opportunity to learn.