Most popular 2018 blogposts:

1. Journey for Justice Releases Stunning New Documentary
2. Webinar Series: The Safe and Supportive Schools All
   Children Deserve
3. New Journey for Justice Report Shows How We’re Failing
   Brown v. Board
4. Native Youth Education & Health: Is Philanthropy up to
   the Challenge?
5. Public School Students Continue to Lead the Nation to a Better Place

 

 

 

 

Original Instructions: A Challenge to Philanthropy to Expand Health and Educational Opportunities for Native Youth

January 2018
The Schott Foundation for Public Education in partnership with Native Americans in Philanthropy, with support from Nike N7, recently released a set of recommendations for helping Native youth live healthy lives. These recommendations came directly from Native American leaders who hold expertise across health, physical fitness, education and youth development sectors. The report, Original Instructions, outlines both challenges and opportunities to philanthropy. It’s a first step towards using our resources to recognize and learn from the resilient Native youth.
Read the report

 

 

The Loving Cities Index

February 2018
As racism and hate continue to dominate the national dialogue, the Schott Foundation for Public Education released the Loving Cities Index, a multi-state report that aims to reverse historical local policies and practices rooted in racism and bias and replace them with policies that create local loving systems from birth and promote an opportunity to learn and thrive.

Read the report

 

 

 

 

Keeping Students First: Building Community Labor Partnerships for Strong Schools

April 2018
This report is designed to support community and labor groups that are ready and willing to engage in meaningful relationship building and collaboration. The case examples of union/community collaboration in St. Paul and Austin highlight two state capitals with distinctly different labor climates and educational challenges. Nonetheless, both unions succeeded by bringing the community into strategy development and partnership in a meaningful way.

Read the report

 

 

 

 

Grading the States

June 2018
This report is designed to support community and labor groups that are ready and willing to engage in meaningful relationship building and collaboration. The case examples of union/community collaboration in St. Paul and Austin highlight two state capitals with distinctly different labor climates and educational challenges. Nonetheless, both unions succeeded by bringing the community into strategy development and partnership in a meaningful way.

Read the report

 

 

January
Radical Self Care: A Necessary Movement-Building Strategy
 

 

 

 
February
First Look at The Loving Cities Index
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the Schott Foundation we’ve been working for more than twenty-five years to support and empower the grassroots, community-centered organizations that are building movements strong enough to enact serious policy change. Here are ten policy victories our grantee partners and allies have celebrated in 2018, all of which provide the momentum for the important work ahead this year.

1. 1. Any list should start with the most iconic education story in 2018: the unprecedented wave of #RedForEd teacher strikes and walkouts that started in West Virginia and spread to Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, and North Carolina. In each case such efforts led to either significant wins for educators and their schools — like increased classroom funding, public employee salaries, and halts to charter expansion — or a still-significant change in the political landscape and public will in support of public education. And in each case successful mobilizations were made possible by strong community ties and coordination (see our recent report on how you can build community-labor partnerships in your hometown!).

1. 1. The organizing efforts of the Coalition for Educational Justice to ensure culturally responsive schools led to $23 million in anti-bias training for educators in New York City public schools.
   2. Dignity in Schools Campaign member Racial Justice Now! won significant school discipline reforms across the state of Ohio.
   3. Thanks to community organizers and a growing cross-sector coalition, the residents of Jackson and Jefferson County Mississippi were able to thwart top-down state takeovers of their school district.

 

1. 1. This fall Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly affirmed a bill to protect the rights of transgender residents in public accommodations, which include school bathrooms. In building toward a “Yes on 3” victory, the Boston Alliance of LGBTQ+ Youth (BAGLY) rooted its resistance to bigotry in the organization’s statewide AGLY network and time-tested strategies to train, support, and lift up the voices of transgender and gender nonbinary youth. Over 100 transgender youth and allies were trained to speak publicly on the importance of civil rights protections and over 200 media stories were published from this perspective.
   2. The Pittsburgh school board voted against arming district police after organizing efforts by groups like the Education Rights Network, a member of the Dignity in Schools Campaign & Journey for Justice Alliance.
   3. In July, Holmes County School District in Mississippi officially banned corporal punishment — long overdue!

 

1. Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC) worked diligently this year to amend the state’s student discipline law to include positive behavioral supports and restorative practices as alternatives to suspensions and expulsions from “willful disobedience.” Despite the setback of having legislation pushed off until next session, FFLIC was voted onto the crucial Advisory Council on Student Behavior and Discipline as a representative, which will give their grassroots inter-generational membership a greater voice on future bills.
2. One Voice was a significant leader in defeating HB 957 in Mississippi. This bill was a major attempt to slash funding and systematically dismantle public education throughout the state.
3. In addition to the victories above, grassroots organizing and mobilization across the country helped deliver a number of stunning defeats against the school privatization agenda at the ballot box this past November, including Arizona voters saying “no” to expanding vouchers, and educators themselves running for and winning public office.

Your support of the Schott Foundation assists us in accelerating policy wins like these! Consider joining us as a donor partner in 2019 to support the education justice movement.