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Resources Section

 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009


2020

PAY TO PLAY – Charter Schools Buy Influence With New York’s Senate Democrats

Alliance for Quality Education

 

2019

Report: New York State Uses Foundation Aid In Name Only, and Black & Latinx Student Pay the Price

Alliance for Quality Education

A report released Wednesday morning delineates the consequences of New York State’s failure to use its own school funding formula, the Foundation Aid formula, since 2009. The report by the Alliance for Quality Education seeks to bring clarity to the conversation around school funding, as the New York State Senate launches a series of roundtables and public hearings on the State’s Foundation Aid formula for public schools.

2018

Educational Racism: Andrew Cuomo’s Record of Underfunding Public Schools in Black & Latino Communities

Alliance for Quality Education
The report focuses on school districts in New York that are both high need and majority Black and Latino, and the impact of New York’s failure to fully fund its equitable school funding formula, the Foundation Aid formula, on those districts.

 

Virtual Funder Brief: Youth Transforming School and Community Safety

FCYO
The Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing, in collaboration with Communities for Just Schools Fund, held a Virtual Funder Brief: Youth Transforming School and Community Safety on MArch 21, 201a. This Virtual Funder Brief created the opportunity for Funders and Donors interested in the current conversations and actions regarding school community safety to learn more about youth-led grassroots efforts.

 

A New Generation: How a Funders’ Collaborative Sees the Prospects for Youth Organizing

Youth United for Change

Whether they’re opposing the “school-to-prison pipeline,” organizing immigrants, or supporting the movement for black lives, many of today’s youth organizers feel newly galvanized. Some groups, of course, are more established than others. In the Trump era, some feel “a new urgency to protect their communities from both hate groups and harmful public policies,” while others “have been experiencing harmful conditions for a long time and… this election was nothing new for them,” said Braxton.

 

We Came to Learn: A Call to Action for Police-Free Schools

Advancement Project & Alliance for Educational Justice

Safety does not exist when Black and Brown young people are forced to interact with a system of policing that views them as a threat and not as students. For many Black and Brown youth, the presence of police in their schools disrupts their learning environments. There is a culture clash that exists between law enforcement and the learning environment: police enforce criminal laws, while schools are supposed to nurture students. This report addresses the stark reality that police in schools is an issue of American racial disparity that requires deep structural change. We will explore the question of why police are in schools at all and conclude that police are incongruent with the educational environment we envision for our children.

 

 

 

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2017

 

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2016

The $3.4 Trillion Mistake: The Cost of Mass Incarceration and Criminalization, and How Justice Reinvestment Can Build A Better Future For All
Reinvest 4 Justice

The report details how the U.S.’s misguided criminal justice policies wasted $3.4 trillion over the last three decades that could have instead been used to more effectively address the root causes of crime and meet critical community needs. The report by Hazen grantees, Communities United, Make the Road New York, and Padres & Jóvenes Unidos, provides a national and state-by-state analysis of the country’s investments in police, prisons, jails, prosecutors, and immigration enforcement. It shows that, from 1982 to 2012, the U.S. increased its spending on the justice system from $90 billion annually to nearly $297 billion, a 229% increase. Cumulatively, over that 30-year period, the U.S. spent $3.4 trillion more on the justice system than it would have if spending had remained steady since 1982.

 

Charter Schools, Civil Rights and School Discipline: A Comprehensive Review
UCLA Civil Rights Project

This report, along with the companion spreadsheet, provides the first comprehensive description ever compiled of charter school discipline. In 2011-12, every one of the nation’s 95,000 public schools was required to report its school discipline data, including charter schools. This analysis, which includes more than 5,250 charter schools, focuses on out-of-school suspension rates at the elementary and secondary levels. The report describes the extent to which suspensions meted out by charter schools for each major racial group and for students with disabilities are excessive or disparate.

 

The Black Girl Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools
The Atlantic

Monique W. Morris, the co-founder of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, offers tactics to work against damaging stigmas.

The Great Unequalizer: How Denver’s Pre-K System Fails the Children of Southwest Denver and Other Low-Income Communities of Color
Padres & Jovenes Unidos

The Great Unequalizer: How Denver’s Pre-K System Fails the Children of Southwest Denver and Other Low-Income Communities of Color. The report presents the findings of our in-depth study of Denver’s pre-K system, with a particular focus on the experiences of Southwest Denver families. It details the substantial barriers related to access, affordability, and quality that families encounter when they attempt to enroll their children in pre-K, and how these barriers are preventing our city from realizing the promise of pre-K as a powerful strategy for addressing socioeconomic inequities and the racial achievement gap.

Students v. State of New York: What Happens to a Dream Deferred?
Alliance for Quality Education

When public education is neglected, students’ dreams are deferred. As the great American poet Langston Hughes wrote, “A dream deferred is a dream denied.”

Protecting Childhood: A Blueprint for Developmentally Appropriate School Policing in Virginia
Legal Aid Justice Center for Just Children Program

School security personnel are increasingly commonplace in Virginia’s public schools. There are two types. School resource officers (SROs) are certified law enforcement officers who are typically employed by local law enforcement agencies and assigned to provide coverage to public schools. School security officers (SSOs) are individuals employed by school divisions to maintain order and discipline in their assigned schools. To date, little analysis of school policing in the Commonwealth exists. This report aims to change that.

 

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2015

Community-Driven Climate Resilience Planning: A Framework
Movement Strategy Center

Community-Driven Climate Resilience Planning is a vital opportunity for cities to reorganize resources, foster meaningful relationships, and develop placed-based innovations that support all people to thrive despite climate disruption. The following framework advocates deepening democratic practices at the local and regional levels and seeks to put forth the principles and practices defining this emergent field, and to outline resources for community-based institutions implementing community-driven planning processes. We consider this a “living framework” as this is a relatively new field of practice, and expect that the framework will be refined and expand as the field evolves.

Restoring Justice in Buffalo Public Schools: Safe and Supportive Quality Education for All 
Alliance for Quality Education 

In June 2010, Jawaan Daniels, a freshman at Lafayette High School in Buffalo, New York, was shot and killed at a bus stop near his school, after having been suspended from school for insubordination while roaming the halls. Jawaan’s untimely passing brought attention to the zero tolerance, punitive nature of Buffalo Public School’s (BPS) discipline policies, which for many years exacerbated the School-to-Prison Pipeline in Buffalo. Under these policies, many students, especially students of color, were suspended and expelled out of school for minor, non-violent infractions. The Buffalo community deserved and demanded better.

Record Setting Inequality: New York State’s Opportunity Gap is Wider Than Ever
Alliance for Quality Education

New York State has long been a national leader in educational inequality and the
inequality gap is growing. We consistently spend much more per pupil in wealthy
communities than in poor ones.

Now or Never: The Fight for the Millennial Generation
Funders Collaborative on Youth Organizing 

This paper highlights how civic engagement leaders can look to the field of youth organizing for promising new strategies to assist them in increasing voter participation, passing beneficial policies, affecting redistricting in 2021, and changing how the Millennial Generation thinks about values and policies for their lifetimes.

Telling It Like It Is! Miami Youth Speak Out on the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Power U Center for Social Change

Youth at Power U Center for Social Change surveyed over 600 Miami students to get their thoughts on school discipline. 15% of the students reported having been locked out of school by staff at least once, meaning they were prevented from even entering the building. Almost all those students were locked out for being late, skipping, or for not wearing the right uniform.

Intro to Restorative Practices
Power U Center for Social Change

Zero Tolerance policies and practices have been the dominate framework for school discipline over the last few decades. This hard-line approach to misbehavior utilizes harsh punishments for even small infractions. These policies have contributed to tense environments within schools where relationships are strained between students and adults and trust is hard to maintain. And research has consistently shown that these policies have resulted in disproportionate suspension, expulsion, and arrest rates for Black and Latino students around the country leading to the development of a “school to prison pipeline.”

Payday Greed: How Banks and Payday Lenders Profit from Minnesotans in Need
ISAIAH

Payday lenders say their loans are meant to help people in a one-time emergency, but in fact payday loans often sink people deeper in debt and trap them in extremely expensive loans.

It’s About Time: The Transit Time Penalty and It’s Racial Implications
ISAIAH

A well-funded and well-designed transit system helps increase access to opportunity across a region and connect residents to each other, jobs, education, grocery shopping, health care, and recreation. However, a transit system that does not serve current housing, employment, and education patterns exacerbates existing racial and economic disparities. This paper focuses on the role that transit planning and funding can play in addressing one aspect of these disparities: the transit time penalty, which is the additional time required to travel between two points by public transportation, compared to travel by car.

Colorado End The School-to-Jail Track
Padres y Jovenes Unidos

 

Quantum Leadership: The Power of Leadership in Motion
Padres y Jovenes Unidos

 

Black Girls Matter: Pushed-Out Overpoliced and Underprotected
African American Policy Forum / Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies

For girls, as with boys, the failure to receive a high school diploma often places individuals on a pathway to low-wage work, unemployment, and incarceration. The imposition of harsh disciplinary policies in public schools is a well-known risk factor for stunted educational opportunities for Black and Latino boys. Such punishments also negatively affect their female counterparts, as do other conditions in zero-tolerance schools. Yet, the existing research, data, and public policy debates often fail to address the degree to which girls face risks that are both similar to and different from those faced by boys.

Love with Power: Practicing Transformation for Social Justice
Movement Strategy Center

“Collective transformative practice is not some hippy dippy thing. It’s about how we are together and how we are successful as movements. This is how #Black Lives Matters thinks about transformative practice: It’s about transformative relationship building. It’s about practice as ritual.”

National Domestic Workers Alliance: Leading with Love
Movement Strategy Center

Pope Francis’ visit to the United States was a watershed moment for many believers and non-believers. With the global migration crisis unfolding in Europe, he called on everyone to act from the highest level of connection and care with each other and the planet.

Electronic Monitoring is Not The Answer: Critical Reflections on a Flawed Alternative
The Center for Media Justice

This report offers a critical assessment of electronic monitoring (EM) in the criminal justice system. The author, who spent a year on an ankle bracelet as a condition of his own parole, draws on his in-depth study of legislation, policies, contracts, and academic literature related to electronic monitoring. In addition to this research, he interviewed people directly impacted by EM in four states. Interviewees included those who had been on the monitor, their family members, corrections officials, and the CEO of a monitoring company. The report rejects any simplistic rush to deploy electronic monitors as an alternative to incarceration.

The 6 Most Important Things to Know About Net Neutrality, Title II Reclassification, and Communities of Color

The Center for Media Justice

The advent and expansion of the Open Internet has been an incredible boon to communities of color. Entrepreneurs of color can succeed without access to traditional financial tools. Independent content producers can tell their own stories to defy stereotypes and create positive portrayals of themselves without needing buy-in from a major media conglomerate. People of color can engage in the political process, bringing their voices directly to those in power and bypassing any roadblocks designed to impede them. With an Open Internet, barriers to entry are low, lack of access to traditional capital markets is less of a problem, and the power of corporate gatekeepers is limited.

Lynching In America: Confronting The Legacy of Racial Terror
Equal Justice Initiative

From the Civil War until World War II, millions of African Americans were terrorized and traumatized by the lynching of thousands of black men, women, and children. This report documents this history and contends that America’s legacy of racial terror must be more fully addressed if racial justice is to be achieved.

Race Reporting Guide
Race Forward

When we talk about education, health care, voting rights, and many other topics, there is often an aversion to talking about race. Though some suggest we are “post-racial,” we find that race still plays a defining role in a person’s life trajectory, experiences, and outcomes. In addition, shifting demographics make even more urgent our need to speak openly about racial bias and inequity, and their deep roots in our history, culture, and institutions. This system of racialization—which routinely confers advantage and disadvantage based on skin color and other characteristics—must be clearly understood.

Cultivating Non-Profit Leadership
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy

Improving the world does not happen in the absence of strong, skilled and connected leaders driving the change process. Leadership development, therefore, is an integral component of any work that seeks to address long-standing structural barriers to sustainable change.

Families Funding Change: How Social Justice Giving Honors Our Roots and Strengthens Communities
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy

Each year, grantmakers invest roughly $50 billion in our communities for efforts focused on commendable goals including justice, peace and an end to poverty. Their strategies and objectives vary widely, and all this work is done with the public’s trust. This plurality of vision and passion drives American philanthropy. Almost half of all grantmaking dollars come from family foundations and, for centuries, families have channeled their private wealth and influence back into the public domain. Names like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford and Gates are associated with significant changes in the lives of those most in need.

No Access: The Need For Improved Language Assistance For Limited English Proficient Asian Tenants of The New York City Housing Authority
Providence Youth Student Movement for Southeast Asian Freedom Network (SEAFN)

For NYCHA tenants with limited proficiency in English, navigating the policies, procedures and paperwork associated with their housing can be fraught with challenges. Issues of language access have serious implications. Tenants whose rents are raised incorrectly may be taken to housing court for non-payment of rent because they were not able to communicate with NYCHA to resolve the error. Tenants may be forced to miss work because they have to schedule repeated meetings in an attempt to communicate their needs. Victims of domestic violence who are in need of emergency housing transfers may not be able to make that need known. The safety of tenants’ apartments can be jeopardized by a lack of language access in the repairs process. Crucial housing information, such as emergency protocols, may not reach tenants because they are not translated. Lack of language access impacts the day-to-day experience of tenants in interaction with NYCHA staff and their ability to participate meaningfully in the NYCHA community, perpetuating isolation.

Pulling Back The Curtain: Shining a Light On Payday and Auto Title Loan Businesses in Texas
Texas Appleseed

Payday and auto title loan businesses have been a source of significant policy debate in Texas over the past two decades. These businesses have been the target of scrutiny because of their very high rate charges, often well above rates permitted under state consumer lending laws, and a loan structure that holds many borrowers in debt far beyond the typical two-week or one-month loan term.

Lessons From Texas: 10 Years of Disaster Recovery Examined
Texas Appleseed

Over the past ten years, the State of Texas has weathered the impact of four major hurricanes: Katrina, Rita, Dolly, and Ike, which caused more than $38 billion in damages. As communities began to recover and rebuild, Texas learned what many other states have discovered in the wake of record storms: Natural disasters reveal and highlight systemic inequalities in the communities affected and in the federal, state, and local systems set up to respond and rebuild.

Mental Illness, Your Client and Criminal Law
Texas Appleseed

Texas Appleseed issued its Fair Defense Report: Analysis of Indigent Defense Practices in Texas 15 years ago. Our work to assess the condition of indigent persons in the criminal justice system revealed the special needs of defendants with mental illness and the inadequate representation they sometimes receive. Defense attorneys, like other court officials, often failed to recognize mental illness. The Fair Defense Report revealed that, even when attorneys recognize clients as mentally ill, many attorneys are not familiar with the specialized mechanisms, procedures, and laws that apply to persons with mental illness.

Class, Not Court: Reconsidering Texas’ Criminalization of Truancy
Texas Appleseed

he reforms last Session did not extend to truancy and attendance laws, which, while intended to keep kids in school, often operate to keep them out. The theory is that the threat of punishment will incentivize attendance. But when almost 100,000 criminal truancy charges are brought each year against Texas schoolchildren, one has to think, his approach may not be working. Playing hooky is bad, but is it criminal?

Towards A More Transparent Justice: The Michael Morton Act’s First Year
Texas Appleseed

The cover image depicts a blue bandanna that was recovered from the vicinity of Michael Morton’s home the morning after his wife, Christine Morton, was murdered. Although no physical evidence connected Michael to the crime, Michael was charged with and eventually convicted of this offense. Throughout his case, prosecutors withheld other evidence collected during the original investigation that pointed towards Michael’s innocence. Michael served twenty-five years in prison before DNA testing obtained by the Innocence Project in 2011 of this bandanna cleared his name and implicated the true perpetrator: Mark Alan Norwood, who was subsequently convicted of this crime.

Recommendations for Re-Authorizing The Public Education and Enrichment Fund (PEEF): Toward Improving The Well-Being of SF’s Children, Youth and Their Families
Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth

The Public Education and Enrichment Fund (PEEF) was created as a result of a ballot measure passed by San Francisco voters in 2004, during a time of diminishing resources for education due to state and federal cuts. A critical resource for our schools and for our young children, the intention was to bolster existing resources and provide greater supports for critical programs.

 

Where’s My Seat? How School Overcrowding Disproportionally Impacts Immigrant Communities in New York City
Make the Road New York

School overcrowding, which occurs when “the number of students enrolled in the school is larger than the number of students the school was designed to accommodate,” is rampant in New York City’s public school system. Across the city, students are forced to learn in crammed classrooms, ill-equipped trailers or temporary classroom units (TCUs), or other spaces not intended for instruction. New York City’s Department of Education (DOE) has acknowledged that more than 49,000 new seats need to be created to address the problem and committed to creating fewer than 33,000 new seats in coming years, and other more likely estimates put the number at more than 100,000.

Protecting Immigrant Homes: The Importance of Stronger Rent Laws for the Newest New Yorkers
Make the Road New York

Amidst a broad affordable housing crisis in New York, the plight of immigrant tenants often goes unmentioned. Immigrants now comprise 38 percent of New York City residents (44 percent of households are headed by immigrants), and they are more likely than other New Yorkers to reside in rent-stabilized or –controlled apartments. With the rent laws expiring this spring, and rent-regulated housing in jeopardy as a result, immigrant New Yorkers’ access to the city’s limited stock of affordable housing is thus greatly at risk.

A Budget for The City of Immigrants: Key Proposals to Ensure NYC’s 2016 Budget Responds to the Needs of Immigrant Residents
Make the Road New York

New York City’s (NYC) annual budget process offers an opportunity for city government to demonstrate its priorities and how it will devote resources to myriad types of programs and services. By early June, the Mayor and City Council are expected to conclude this process, which will include key decisions on issues including school funding, policing, and affordable housing. As elected officials move forward in this process, it is critical that they heed the rights and needs of immigrant New Yorkers, who are at the center of our vibrant and productive city.

Advocating for LGBTQ Student Rights in the Mississippi Delta Resource Guide Nollie Jenkins Family Center

This guide is intended to be used as a reference to support the creation of safe spaces for LGBT students. The materials included within should be used as an advocacy tool for parents, students and advocates to encourage a community that is inclusive of LGBT diversity. Too often, LGBT students are subjected to discrimination and harassment, especially at school. Without a welcoming learning environment, there are significant consequences to a student’s sense of safety and ability to succeed in school.

Restoring Justice to Our Schools: Community Research and Solutions to End School Pushout
The New Settlement Parent Action Committee 

New York City is at a critical crossroads for school discipline reform. Since the first release of Student Safety Act Data in 2012, there has been growing recognition on the part of both policymakers and educators of the need to move away from punitive, zero-tolerance models of school discipline. This tenuous consensus is reflected in the impressive reductions in arrests, summonses and suspensions across the City in the last three years. However, securing these gains will require deeper investments in alternatives to punitive discipline practices. Schools that have already made progress need additional resources to scale up positive discipline and restorative justice. And schools that have struggled to reduce suspensions will continue to rely on them unless they have concrete alternatives.

Vouchers and Tax Credit Scholarships in the US
Southern Education Foundation

2015 – The future of public education in the United States is at a critical crossroads.  Watch this video to learn how the growing trend of sending public money to private schools through vouchers and tax credit scholarships threatens public education.

Building Momentum from the Ground Up: A Toolkit for Promoting Justice in Policing
The Center for Popular Democracy

Communities across the country that have lived for too long under the weight of discriminatory policing and mass incarceration are calling for a transformation of our policing and criminal justice systems. They are making it clear that it is time for policies to first and foremost reflect the concerns and solutions of communities most affected by flawed policing practices. Communities are demanding meaningful oversight of law enforcement, accountability, an end to the criminalization of communities of color, and an investments well beyond federally-sponsored tanks and additional police.

Essentials of Impact Investing: A Guide for Small-Staffed Foundations
Mission Investors Exchange

Impact investing has the potential to enable every foundation, regardless of size, to pursue its philanthropic mission more effectively. It can help individual donors, families, foundations with few or no staff, and all sorts of giving entities put more and different types of capital to work for social good. Even better, it can deliver philanthropic impact alongside financial returns—which can enable reinvestment of those funds in pursuit of even more social good.

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2014

Death By a Thousand Cuts: Racism, School Closures, and Public School Sabotage 
Journey 4 Justice Alliance 

We, the members of Journey for Justice, are comprised of thousands of youth, parents, and other concerned citizens from communities of color across the United States. We write this report because we need the American people to know that the public education systems in our communities are dying. More accurately, they are being killed by an alliance of misguided, paternalistic “reformers,” education profiteers, and those who seek to dismantle the institution of public education. Some are being killed quickly; others are still in the early stages. But it is, at this point, quite clear that there will soon be little to nothing left of our public school systems – and many more like ours – unless current trends are disrupted.

Restorative Practices: An Introduction for Miami-Dade Educators
Power U Center for Social Change

In the fight to make sure every student walks across the stage on graduation day, the issues of school discipline and school climate have risen to the top of many educators’ priority lists. Miami-Dade Public Schools have made serious strides on this front that must be commended, including the implementation of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports and an overall drop in school suspensions, but we know much more is needed. Our teachers and administrators need meaningful tools and support to get to the root causes of disciplinary issues in students. Our students need meaningful relationships with educators and staff, a safe space to learn, and an opportunity to be heard.

Denver Community Accountability Report Card
Padres y Jovenes Unidos

Through a decade of grassroots organizing, the parents and youth of Padres & Jóvenes Unidos (PJU) have worked towards dismantling the institutional racism and overuse of police in the school-to-jail track in Denver Public Schools (DPS). Because of PJU’s policy and campaign victories, DPS discipline policies and practices are frequently lifted up as national models regarding how to stop the school-to-prison pipeline across the country, particularly for communities and Students of Color.

The Campaign for a Free Metro Pass for LA County Students and The End to Youth Stop and Frisk, Fair Evasion Ticketing and Arrests on Public Transportation
Youth Justice Coalition

 Geographically, Los Angeles is the largest urban county in the United States and one of the largest counties in the world. And the county is known for its “urban sprawl” making walking to reach essential services – such as education, food, health care and employment –impossible. For many families, public transportation is their only form of transportation, without which they are trapped in their immediate surroundings.

The Colorado School Discipline Report Card
Padres & Jovenes Unidos

For many years, the overuse of harsh school disciplinary measures such as out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, police tickets, and school-based arrests has caused severe harm to Colorado’s students, families, schools, and communities. Tens of thousands of mostly Black, Latino, and Native American students have been needlessly pushed out of school and/or sent into the juvenile justice system by these misguided and ineffective practices.

 

Lessons in Racial Justice and Movement Building: Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline in Colorado and Nationally
Padres & Jovenes Unidos and Advancement Project

When Padres & Jóvenes Unidos (PJU) and Advancement Project began working to address excessively harsh and discriminatory school discipline, the term “School-to-Prison Pipeline” had not even been invented yet. School discipline was at best a fringe issue in mainstream education policy discussions, what little news coverage there was generally favored the zero-tolerance approach, any policy changes were directed at making school discipline more punitive, and there were very few organizing groups or advocacy organizations that had devoted themselves to addressing these issues at a systemic level. In short, the conditions were far from optimal for creating change.

Explaining Disparity in Student Performance
Southern Echo

This report will update analyses of Mississippi data to show the intense correlation between poverty, race, critical teacher shortages, school district ranking and student performance, and how the disparity in outcomes among Mississippi’s school districts directly correlates with these same factors.

Public Accountability for Charter Schools
Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University

Public schools – among our nation’s oldest and most cherished public institutions – were created to provide a free elementary and secondary education to all children. But providing that education to students in impoverished communities proved to be a challenge. The semi-independent charter school model, first applied in 1991, aimed to look outside traditional school district structures and develop innovative strategies that could be applied at scale across all public schools.

Unlocking Opportunity for African American Girls
National Women’s Law Center

Behind many of the most important battles for racial and gender equality in the United States—from school desegregation to sex discrimination—are African American girls. From the pioneers in school desegregation, such as Linda Brown and Barbara Johns, to the advocates for legal protections against student-on-student sexual harassment, like LaShonda Davis, African American girls have played significant roles in ensuring the availability of meaningful educational opportunities for everyone. Despite this proud history of leadership, the ongoing experiences of African American girls in our nation’s schools are rarely considered or discussed.

 

We Deserve Better!
BreakOUT! With support from the National Council on Crime Delinquency

For the past three years, as a part of our We Deserve Better Campaign, BreakOUT! has been surveying young LGBTQ (lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, and queer/ questioning) individuals on their experiences and interactions with the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD). BreakOUT! understands that many trans women, including young trans women of color live below the poverty line. BreakOUT! is also aware that low-income communities of color face higher rates of policing and arrests.

Strengthening Collaborations to Build Social Movements
NEO Philanthropy

Movements require a diversity of people and organizations who develop a shared vision, identity, and message frame for the changes they seek to bring about. They are fueled by common campaigns and coordinated action. They are grounded in relationships that are sturdy enough to navigate challenges and to seize collective opportunities that emerge from coalitions and alliances forged across regions, constituencies, and issues. These essential elements do not simply arise out of good will and best intentions. They depend on funders’ sustained investment in field infrastructure, their tolerance for ambiguity, and their patience in realizing results.

Building Capacity to Sustain Social Movements
NEO Philanthropy

This report explores how grantmakers can leverage their investments by coupling direct grants with strategically delivered capacity building supports. It focuses on building capacity for community organizing and advocacy groups, though many of its lessons are more broadly applicable.

 

Greater Power, Lasting Impact: Effective Grantmaker Strategies
NEO Philanthropy

Greater Power, Lasting is one of several reports CPER prepared to share lessons learned about Fund impacts and effective grantmaking strategies.

Moving Forward on Racial Justice Philanthropy
Philanthropic Racial Equity

“Have you seen any progress?” This is a question most of us are asked in our work toward social change. It is asked of ourselves, asked by our funders or boards or others. And when we focus that question on racial justice, a source of ongoing discourse where one’s answer can signify our level of awareness and be taken as a testament of our own righteousness, it’s an even more weighted question.

Beyond Zero Tolerance: Discipline and Policing in Pennsylvania Public Schools
American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania

“Zero tolerance” describes a policy that “assigns explicit, predetermined punishments to specific violations of school rules, regardless of the situation or context of the behavior.” The original rationale was that serious offenses should be met with firm discipline. But in practice, zero tolerance has had a much broader reach and impact. Its use is not confined to the most serious situations.

Keep Children Out of Prison
Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights

We can act now to stop children from being raped, beaten, and even killed. We can do it while saving money. We can do legally and constitutionally, while enhancing public safety and reducing long-term recidivism.

THE ESSENCE OF JUSTICE: INDEPENDENT, ETHICAL, AND ZEALOUS ADVOCACY BY JUVENILE DEFENDERS
Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights

In April 2012, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice completed its investigation of the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County acting under the authority of the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The investigation found serious and systemic failures that violate due-process rights and discriminate against African-American children.  After more than a decade of deep investment from both the public and private sectors, many consider the Department’s unprecedented direct federal action in Shelby County as key to leveraging the next generation of juvenile-justice reform.

The School Discipline Consensus Report: Strategies From The Field To Keep Students Engaged in School and Out of The Criminal Justice System
Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights

Research and date on school discipline practices are clear: millions of students are being removed from their classrooms each year, mostly in middle and high schools, and overwhelmingly for minor misconduct. When suspended, these students are at a significantly higher risk of falling behind academically, dropping out of school, and coming into contact with the juvenile justice system. A disproportionately large percentage of disciplined students are youth of color, students with disabilities, and youth who identify as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT).

Kids Doing Time For What’s Not a Crime: The Over-Incarceration of Status Offenders  

Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights

This report was developed in order to produce an up-to-date understanding of the nation’s progress in reducing confinement of status offenders, utilizing newly available data on youth confined in the U.S., in combination with previously available data on juvenile court statistics. Under current federal law, states are subject to the loss of federal juvenile justice funding if status offenders—those offenders whose acts would not be considered criminal if committed by adult—are kept in a secure institution unless the exception for violating a court order applies. This stemmed from the overuse of incarceration to handle nonviolent, minor offenses like running away and truancy.

 

Helping You Help Your Child: A Focus on Education
Legal Aid Justice Center for Just Children Program

“Helping You Help Your Child: A Focus on Education” is designed to give families a general understanding of their children’s rights in schools and with education-related issues. This is the sixth edition of JustChildren’s handbook. Information is power, especially when you’re dealing with complex services like education. Your interest in learning more about children’s rights will go a long way toward helping them have options and success in the future!

Explaining Disparity in Student Performance: Race, Class, Critical Teacher Shortage, Student Performance and School District Ranking in Mississippi School District
Southern Echo

We continue to face an ideologically-driven hostility against full-funding and support for policies designed to deliver the educational opportunities to which all children ought to be entitled, regardless of race, ethnicity, class, national origin, religion, status, geographical location or gender identification.

Make The Road New York Annual Report
Make the Road New York

In 2014, MRNY provided health and safety training to 3,500 immigrant workers in Spanish. This need is tremendous: Latino workers are the most likely to be killed or injured on the job, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. MRNY members report persistent, dangerous violations in their workplaces and virtually no other access to training or safety equipment. With a severe shortage of accessible Spanish language OSHA training in the New York and New Jersey region, MRNY has stepped up to fill the gap.

Addressing Health Disparities through The Marketplace: An Action Agenda for New York State of Health
Make the Road New York

All things are not equal when it comes to health in the Empire State. Fortunately, the passage of national health reform has created numerous opportunities for addressing these disparities and improving the chances for all New Yorkers to live healthy lives. Many mechanisms under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) aimed at health disparities depend on action on the state level. In New York, policymakers have taken advantage of a number of these opportunities, and they should be applauded for such decisions. Yet, there remains more that leaders in New York can do to promote health equity in our state.

Transforming Public Education: The Need for an Education Justice Movement
New England Journal of Public Policy

Nearly fifteen years after the passage of No Child Left Behind, the failures of our educational system with regard to low-income children of color remain profound. Traditional reform efforts have sought improvements solely within the confines of the school system, failing to realize how deeply educational failure is part of and linked to broader structures of poverty and racism. A social movement that creates political and cultural change is necessary to transform the racial inequities in public education itself and to connect this transformational effort to a larger movement to combat poverty and racism. The seeds of a new educational justice movement can be found in the rise of community and youth organizing efforts, in the development of teacher activism, and in the recent creation of new alliances at local, state, and national levels like those combating the school-to-prison pipeline. Many activists and educators have begun to offer a program for school transformation that connects to a broad agenda to combat racial segregation and economic insecurity, to improve housing, public health, and safety, and to reform immigration laws.

What is School Pushout?
Dignity in Schools

Every child has a right to a quality education and to be treated with dignity. Yet, the way our school approaches discipline often pushes young people out of school through suspensions, expulsions and even arrests for minor behavior.

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2013

Powerful Places: Principles for Effective Community-Driven Change
Movement Strategy Center

Over the last decade, we have seen disparities grow in our country. Climate disasters and a financial depression and recession detrimentally impacting places from New Orleans to Detroit, from New York to California. Philanthropy has attempted to resource innovation and much needed intervention to bridge some of the gaps. With an active and long partnership between philanthropy and actors within civil society implementing innovation and intervention, the term “high impact philanthropy” has surfaced.

 

Moving Up, Fighting Back: Creating a Path to LGBTQ Youth Liberation
FIERCE 

FIERCE is a membership-based organization that works to build the leadership and power of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth of color in New York City.

2013 National Field Scan
Funders Collaborative on Youth Organizing

Youth organizing is an innovative strategy that powerfully engages young people, particularly low income young people and young people of color, to develop and implement individual, community and societal change through community organizing. The Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing (FCYO), founded in 2000, is the only national intermediary that is dedicated to increasing philanthropic resources for youth organizing groups and promoting the leadership of low-income young people and young people of color organizing for social justice.

Grassroots Voices Listening Projects: “Facilitator’s Guide”
Journey 4 Justice Alliance 

The Grassroots Voices Listening Projects utilizes a seven-step process that insures that the grassroots voices of the people directly impacted by corporate education policy are effectively secured, heard, documented and reported. The more representative bodies that can be assembled to comprise a Listening Project, the better.

Excellent Education for All Children
Philadelphia Student Union 

When evaluating potential education reforms, the question we must ask is: Do they lead to better and more equitable educational opportunities, safer communities, less poverty and a stronger, healthier Philadelphia, or do they put our children, our families and our communities at greater risk? The plan created by the business management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and introduced by the Philadelphia School Reform Commission (SRC), to “transform” the School District of Philadelphia unquestionably fails that test. While their goals may be admirable, and our school district undeniably needs significant reform, implementation of the BCG Plan would move our schools in precisely the wrong direction.

From Report Card to Criminal Record: The Impact of Policing Oakland Youth
Black Organizing Project

In the name of public safety, Black children in Oakland are being arrested at vastly disproportionate rates. This derails their opportunities for educational success while failing to ensure our children’s safety. From Report Card to Criminal Record: The Impact of Policing Oakland Youth describes the various and overlapping law enforcement agencies which police Oakland’s children. It reveals disturbing trends in disproportionate arrests and law enforcement contacts with youth of color, coupled with the underfunding of counselors, mental health professionals, and others whose presence could work to reduce the need for law enforcement.

 

Health Impact Assessment of School Discipline Policies
Community Asset Development Re-Defining Education (CADRE)

A health impact assessment of exclusionary school discipline, Positive Behavioral interventions and supports, and restorative justice policies in three California school districts.

Rapid Health Impact Assessment of School Integration Strategies in Minnesota
ISAIAH

The goal of school integration is to provide all of Minnesota’s students with an equal opportunity for a good education. But integrated schools also promote better health. We know that the more education one has, the better are one’s chances of getting and keeping a good job. But there are also established links between education and health beyond career and income, and integration strengthens those links. Studies show that students who attend integrated schools stay in school longer, have access to better resources, do better in the classroom, are less likely to be incarcerated and are better prepared for life in an increasingly diverse society.

The Wall Street Wrecking Ball: What Foreclosures are costing Minnesotans and What We Can Do About It
ISAIAH

Minnesotans are still reeling from the effects of the Great Recession, which brought record rates of unemployment and foreclosure and blew holes in state budgets nationwide. While it was Wall Street’s toxic lending practices and recklessness that created the economic crisis, it is Minnesota homeowners and taxpayers who are still paying the price.

Development without Displacement: Resisting Gentrification in The Bay Area
Just Cause/Causa Justa

This report contributes to the conversation and understanding of gentrification and displacement from the perspective of a frontline organization working in neighborhoods most impacted by the crisis. We aim to challenge existing definitions and assumptions about gentrification and displacement that portrays it as positive, needed progress; as well as highlight the devastating health impacts that gentrification and displacement have on working-class people of color. We will offer an alternative vision of community development that centralizes the interest and needs of working-class communities of color. We feel this vision will ultimately create healthier and more sustainable neighborhoods for all residents in our cities.

Black, Brown, and Over-policed in L.A. Schools: Structural Proposals to End the School-to-Prison Pipeline in The Los Angeles Unified School District and To Build a National Movement to Stop the Mass Incarceration of Black and Latino Communities
Labor Community Strategy Center 

Today the Los Angeles public school system is at a parallel moment of hope and contradiction. In the last two years, through dramatic reductions in truancy and tardy ticketing under the Daytime Curfew law and most recently through the passage of the School Climate Bill of Rights,1 Los Angeles has made significant progress in reversing “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies that repress and criminalize the overwhelmingly Black and Latino youth of the public school system. For some, these reforms are seen as encouraging first steps; for others, they represent the end of the road. This report argues that while we have made very encouraging initial changes in policy, more structural, comprehensive, and enforceable remedies are urgently needed.

Logan Square Neighborhood Association: Annual Report
Logan Square Neighborhood

Logan Square is a vibrant community located on Chicago’s near Northwest side. Despite being an economically and culturally diverse neighborhood, families in Logan Square’s public schools struggle disproportionately with poverty and language barriers that put students at-risk for low educational achievement. Education efforts at the Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA) work to address these barriers.

Negative Impacts of Gang Injunctions on Youth and Communities
Youth Justice Coalition

 

A, B, C, D, STPP: How School Discipline Feed the School-to-Prison Pipeline
New York Civil Liberties Union

Overly punitive school discipline feeds the school-to-prison pipeline and contributes to the failure of New York’s public school system to educate the city’s most disadvantaged students.

The Wheel and the Web: Shifting and Sequencing Investment and Impact to Balance Human and Ecological Systems
Movement Strategy Center

Undeniably, we are living in an era at the intersection of the worst economic depression the world has ever experienced and an insurmountable ecological crisis that threatens our very existence. The mechanisms that create racial, religious, extreme inequality on the one hand are the same mechanisms that create the degradation of the planet on the other. And, as the mechanisms that create inequality grow more powerful, inequality itself is rapidly accelerating. We know that a strong public sector and State are needed to counterbalance these mechanisms and the elites that dominate it in order to create a regenerative economy and environment, securing, at the very least, our basic means to survive.

Please Deposit All of Your Money: Kickbacks, Rates, and Hidden Fees In The Jail Phone Industry
The Center for Media Justice

At a time when the cost of a phone call is approaching zero, one population is forced to pay astronomical sums to stay in touch: the families of incarcerated people. For a child to speak with her incarcerated parent, a family member or friend is forced to pay almost $1 per minute, plus a long list of other fees that easily double the total cost of the call. Faced with phone bills that can total hundreds of dollars, many families have to choose between paying for calls and paying for basic living expenses.

Slavery In America: The Montgomery Slave Trade
Equal Justice Initiative

Beginning in the seventeenth century, millions of African people were kidnapped, enslaved, and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas under horrific conditions that frequently resulted in starvation and death. Nearly two million people died at sea during the agonizing journey.

Prevention Vs. Punishment: Threat Assessment, School Suspensions, and Racial Disparities
Legal Aid Justice Center for Just Children Program

Racial disparities in school discipline today are troubling. Nationally, nearly one third of black male high school and middle school students undergo suspension, while only one in ten white males are suspended. In Virginia, black males are suspended at approximately twice the rate of white males in elementary, middle, and high schools. Black females are suspended at more than twice the rate of white females. There are racial disparities even when controlling for a variety of other factors, such as poverty and delinquency. Because suspension is linked to school dropout and delinquency, reducing disparities in suspension rates could help reduce school dropout and delinquency rates for all students, but especially for black males.

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2012

Ripe for Reform: Arkansas as a Model for Social Change
Arkansas Public Policy Panel

This document explores the factors creating Arkansas’s record of progress. The history of populism and progressivism in the state, especially compared to its Southern neighbors, serves as a foundation on which modern progressive social change can be built.

 

Workers Rights Are Human Rights: South Asian Immigrant Workers in New York City 
Desis Rising Up and Moving Out

Immigrants in the United States live in every neighborhood, attend every school, and work in every sector. They are fully immersed in their local communities and contribute substantially to society and culture. In 2005, there were over 191 million international migrants across the globe and in the United States one in every eight residents is an immigrant. An estimated 37.9 million immigrant workers in the U.S. account for a significant portion of the economy and over 11 million undocumented workers and youth represent some of the most over-worked and under-valued people in U.S. society. New York City has an estimated two million immigrants working in the city.

In Our Own Words: Narratives of South Asian New Yorkers Affected by Racial and Religious Profiling
Desis Rising Up and Moving Out

In the eyes of the world, New York City serves as the quintessential emblem of the vibrant diversity within the United States and the gateway to the American Dream. Amid the city’s mosaic of residents – including African Americans, Asians, Europeans, Latinos, Middle Easterners and those from the Caribbean – South Asians have long established an indelible presence in the city. Yet, after the devastating attacks of September 11th, 2001 on the World Trade Center, Muslims and anyone perceived to be Muslim became the public enemy literally overnight.

Our Children Are Not Collateral Damage! A Call for Sustainable School Transformation
Journey 4 Justice Alliance 

For decades, schools that serve African American and Latino students have been denied their fair share of education resources. Without libraries, without a full range of college, career and enrichment course offerings, without counselors or supported teachers, students in our urban districts have had little to no opportunity to meet their full potential. Now, corporate education reformers are destroying our public schools altogether, closing them, turning them over to private management, firing our teachers and squeezing education budgets in the name of “reform.” This assault on public education is happening almost exclusively in communities of color. It must stop.

Our School, Our Vision, Our Choice: Student Blueprint
Vietnamese Young American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans

A task force composed of current students, alumni, and community leaders began meeting in early fall, 2011, to determine methods for engaging the opinions and ideas of students and the larger community. The task force kicked off their community visioning campaign on October 28th, 2011, by hosting a rally in the Reed gymnasium to hear from students, teachers and neighborhood residents about their dreams for Reed.

The Other Side of Immigration: Humane, Sensible & Replicable Responses In a Changing Nation
Just Cause/Causa Justa

With immigrant enforcement bills passing first in Arizona in 2010 and in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Utah and Indiana in 2011, human and civil rights organizations have had no trouble identifying who and what to fight against. But amid the nativist noise and the legislative rancor, a comparably quiet movement is giving immigrants and their supporters something concrete to fight for.

 

Is Just Growth Smarter Growth? The Effects of Gentrification on Transit Ridership and Driving in Las Angles’ Transit Station Area Neighborhoods
Labor Community Strategy Center

Los Angeles in is in the midst of a dramatic transformation of our transportation systems and land use patterns. In 2008, the county passed Measure R, which will pump $16 billion dollars into 11 new transit lines and more than 70 light rail stations over the next several decades1. This investment will catalyze striking changes for the neighborhoods surrounding these stations. The private sector, the City of Los Angeles, and Metro, the region’s transit operator, have targeted station areas for new, dense, mixed-use development, or transit-oriented development (TOD). By placing more people within close walking distance of transit and making non-automotive travel more attractive, planners contend that TOD can increase transit ridership, decrease automobile trips, and build toward a more sustainable city.

 

Tracked and Trapped: Youth of Color, Gang Databases and Gang Injunctions
Youth Justice Coalition

This report represents the most comprehensive data ever released regarding who is on the Cal Gang Database by county, age and race. We don’t say this out of pride, but out of concern for the total lack of state and local transparency and accountability in regards to the implementation of gang suppression. It is our intention to expose these policies and practices to the light of community evaluation and oversight.

Families Unlocking Futures: Solution to The Crisis in Juvenile Justice
Youth Justice Coalition

“Families Unlocking Futures: Solutions to the Crisis in Juvenile Justice” introduces the informed and heartfelt perspective of families, the parents, and other relatives who are uniquely affected by the systems that can determine the future of their children. We cannot afford to ignore their valuable insight any longer. Routinely, families are dismissed as spectators, at best, while judges, prosecutors, probation officers, and public defenders determine the fate of young people who enter the juvenile justice system. This report spells out how the professionals who turn the wheels of juvenile systems can learn from the experiences and thoughts of families, and how they can include them as active participants and partners.

Welcome Home LA: From The Cell Block to the Corner Block
Youth Justice Coalition

Currently, LA County is determining how it will address the “realignment” plan of Governor Brown, which will shift Parole responsibilities to local government. In LA, the County Department of Probation and the Sheriffs Department will have the leading roles in realignment design and implementation, and control of the tens of millions of dollars that comes with it. We are urging the County to support all the community and faith based organizations that have quietly and effectively served people coming home from prison for decades. It is our urgent hope that we can bring about the development of a successful, humane, just, cost effective and innovative Reentry and Realignment Plan for LA.

 

Getting Started in Education Organizing
Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University

Over the past two decades, community organizing has emerged as an effective force for school improvement. From a few groups working on local school improvement in the 1980s, scholars now estimate that nearly 500 community groups are organizing for school improvement and education reform (Warren & Mapp 2011). These groups organize parents, community residents, and young people in urban, suburban, and rural areas across the country. They include large, multi-issue groups as well as groups dedicated solely to education organizing. Affiliates of every national organizing network, as well as scores of independent groups, are engaged in education campaigns.

How to Retain Funds for Youth Programming From the Sale or Lease of Juvenile Facilities
National Juvenile Justice Network

In recent years, many state governments recognized that locking away youth in trouble with the law in state prisons—facilities that are proven to harm youth and increase recidivism—and far away from their families and other community supports, is a needless expense. Many states closed large facilities or are in the process of making systemic changes that are intended to enable the closure of facilities. Unfortunately, however, facility closures—especially those that arise primarily from an interest in balancing state budgets—do not necessarily lead to better investments in programs and services for youth in the juvenile justice system.

All Children Are Children: Challenging Abusive Punishment of Juveniles
Equal Justice Initiative

Children under the age of 14 are protected in virtually every area of the law, except when it comes to the criminal justice system. Over the last 25 years, very young children have been prosecuted as adults in increasing numbers and subjected to very harsh adult sentences. Prosecuting underage children as adults is not only incompatible with the capabilities of young children, but also traumatizing, abusive, cruel, and unusual.

Communicating for Health Justice: A Communications Strategy Curriculum for Advancing Health Issues
The Praxis Project

We now know that the healthiest nations have social and political structures with the most equity and access. Small nations with relatively fewer resources like Cuba have better health outcomes than large, high resource nations like the United States. This is because healthy communities are more than the sum of individual choices. Healthy communities are the sum of policies, structures, systems for education, resource distribution, political enfranchisement and more.

Developing A Policy Initiative
The Praxis Project

It’s not enough to simply react to issues with demands and counter demands. At some point, if we are serious about building community power, we must shape and initiate public policy. Below are basic steps in shaping proactive, community-generated policies. Of course, this worksheet is not a recipe but a guide from which to begin your strategy.

Assessing the Philanthropic Component Of A Proposed Bank Merger’s Public Benefit
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy

This white paper seeks to help fill this knowledge gap for regulators. Based on best-practice research about philanthropy, it offers standards and benchmarks to help regulators in the future assess such claims. This paper appears at an especially opportune moment because, as Federal Reserve Governor Daniel K. Tarullo recently observed, the Dodd-Frank Act requires bank regulators to rethink the balance of “public benefit” versus “systemic risk” before ruling on future mergers – a reappraisal that should include a more rigorous assessment of applicants’ philanthropic claims.

 

Cultivating the Grassroots: A Winning Approach for Environment and Climate Funders
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy

The pace of social change is quickening in the United States and across the world. From a historic presidential election in 2008 to the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, longstanding barriers to justice and equality are being challenged in every corner of the globe. Unfortunately, the environmental movement is not keeping up. New environmental initiatives have been stalled and attacked while existing regulations have been rolled back and undermined. At a time when the peril to our planet and the imperative of change should drive unyielding forward momentum, it often seems as if the environmental cause has been pushed back to the starting line.

Leveraging Limited Dollars: How Grantmakers Achieve Tangible Results By Funding Policy and Community Engagement
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy

This paper will help philanthropic executives and trustees explore three innovative strategies to achieve greater results with their limited grant dollars. It distills findings from more than 400 pages of research amassed over three years as part of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy’s Grantmaking for Community Impact Project.

Putting the Pieces Together: People Powered Solutions for Neighborhood Jobs & the Local Economy
Communities United for Health and Justice

For too long, economic development plans and job creation strategies affecting low income community members have been hatched behind closed doors. As a result, hard working San Franciscans have inherited an economy that undermines opportunities for a better future and exploits workers through low wages and informal work. There is a better way. It begins with neighborhood solutions emerging from youth, elders, women and men talking and planning together. It continues with public agencies stepping forward as strong partners with the community, enacting policy changes and providing public investments. This is exactly what’s taking place in San Francisco’s District 11.

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2011

Pushed Out: Youth Voices on the Dropout Crisis in Philadelphia
Youth United for Change

Pushed Out: Youth Voices on the Dropout Crisis in Philadelphia is a Participatory Action Research report on the pushout crisis in Philadelphia. The research and writing of this report were completed by members of Youth United for Change’s Pushout Chapter, a group of out-of-school youth and students in alternative schools and programs. Pushed Out is supported with lead funding from Project U-Turn.

Our Lives on The Line: Youth-Led Solution to Violence in Chicago Neighborhoods
Communities United

The purpose of this study is to understand youth awareness of the programs available in their communities and the perceived relationship to violence in four community areas: Albany Park, Little Village, North Kenwood/Oakland, and Woodlawn. These communities are four underserved, low-income, and racially diverse communities in the city of Chicago.

Step Into Long Beach: Exposing How Cambodian American Youth Are Under Resourced, Over Policed and Fighting Back For Their Wellness
Khmer Girls in Action

In this report we present the experiences and opinions of second generation Cambodian American youth, much of which has not been formally documented. This report is groundbreaking for a myriad of reasons. Youth developed, disseminated, and analyzed a survey of approximately 500 youth in Long Beach, California. They also conducted focus groups and analyzed and disseminated these findings as well. Their findings highlight issues that touch upon every aspect of their lives, from parental expectations to racial profiling to sex and sexuality.

The Road To Good Jobs: Making Training Work
Labor Community Strategy Center

With major transportation infrastructure investments all but guaranteed as a near-term job creation strategy, the question is whether those hit hardest by the recession—minorities and women—will be lifted up or left behind.

Transit Access and Zero-Vehicle Households
Labor Community Strategy Center

Americans possess a well-documented dependency on the automobile—and nowhere is that clearer than in how Americans travel to work. Over three-quarters of commuters drive alone to work, with another 10 percent carpooling. Considering that Americans registered over 133 million private and commercial vehicles in 2009, it makes sense that so many people would drive. However, there remain over 10 million American households who do not own a private vehicle.

Books Not Bars: Students for Safe & Fair Schools
Padres y Jovenes Unidos

ZERO TOLERANCE is a set of harsh, unforgiving policies and practices that emphasize the long-term removal of students from the classroom for violating school rules. Often, zero tolerance is applied to relatively minor misbehavior such as classroom disruption and schoolyard fighting. Increasingly, schools have also been relying on law enforcement and juvenile courts to address school-based issues resulting in the drastic criminalization of young people.

“We’re Not Even Allowed to Ask for Help
Coalition for Asian American Children and Families

The quality of education available to Asian Pacific American students in New York City public schools is vulnerable to the same factors that shape the education provided to other children of color. Poverty, inequitable distribution of teaching resources, overcrowding, locked down schools, and serious deficits in the cultural competence of many administrators and some educators affect the schooling of Asian Pacific American children and youth as they do that of Black, Latino, and other communities of color.

Raise Your Hand Campaign
Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans (VAYLA-NO)

This youth-led, student-centered research initiative examines twelve dimensions of schooling that local students identified as integral to a quality education—teaching, student support services, physical environment, textbooks, school food, family inclusion, rigor and college readiness, English as a second language, school fees, access to school options, transportation, and safety. Through interviews, focus groups and peer-to-peer surveying, 450 students at six public high schools reported on their school’s delivery of these dimensions, which we use as the basis for evaluating educational quality and equity in the post-Katrina system.

Communities Turning the Tide on School Discipline
Just and Fair Schools Fund // Public Interest Projects

JFSF partners have made significant headway in the struggle for rights-focused school discipline reform in the U.S. Grants from JFSF support 21 core groups, plus 34 of their coalition members, across 12 states. As grassroots groups representing a diverse range of affected populations, they draw strength from dynamic organizing models and take distinctive, outcome-oriented approaches to the problem of extreme school discipline. JFSF partners are starting to turn the tide against harsh discipline policies and practices — and towards equitable, educational solutions that keep children in school.

The Death Penalty in Alabama: Judge Override
Equal Justice Initiative

No capital sentencing procedure in the united States has come under more criticism as unreliable, unpredictable, and arbitrary than the unique Alabama practice of permitting elected trial judges to override jury verdicts of life and impose death sentences.

Reimagining Rezoning: A Chinatown for Residents is a Chinatown for All
Providence Youth Student Movement for Southeast Asian Freedom Network (SEAFN)

One of the most widespread tools used to shape our modern towns and cities are zoning rules and regulations that are set forth by local municipalities. Local governments wield enormous power over the use and development of land, which can significantly impact local communities, particularly when zoning laws are changed through a rezoning. Rezoning has been used to protect the needs of residents and businesses, preserve historic communities, encourage affordable housing development, increase neighborhood employment opportunities, and expand transportation options.

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2010

Coming Out, Stepping Up: Organizing to Build The Power of LGBTQ Youth
FIERCE

This report is not only about highlighting the major problems facing LGBTQ youth, but also a call to action to the LGBTQ movement to invest in organizing as an essential strategy for change in general, and particularly amongst LGBTQ youth of color. The opportunity to organize for the change LGBTQ youth desperately need exists. As a movement, we do not have the time or luxury to let it slip away.

Historical Background and Legal Implication of the Term “illegal”
Race Forward

The i-word is not neutral. It is racially charged and has been promoted by restrictionist advocacy organizations like Numbers USA1 and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR),2 founded by eugenicist John Tanton3. Frank Luntz, a Republican Party strategist, recommended operatives promote use of the term “illegal immigrants” in a 2005 memo4, explaining that it would encourage an understanding of immigrants as criminals and create politically useful division among voters. With clear direction to use “illegal immigrant,” the shorthand slur has become just as common among media pundits and political campaigns.

Rebuilding Neighborhoods, Restoring Health: A Report on the Impact of Foreclosures on Public Health
Causa Justa / Just Cause

An epidemic of foreclosures has struck Alameda County, and Oakland in particular. Between 2006 and 2009, 42,553 property owners in Alameda County and 14,941 property owners in Oakland received a notice of default on their mortgage loan. In Oakland, this means about 1 in 4 mortgages began to enter into foreclosure during this 4-year period. Low-income communities of color in East and West Oakland have been especially hard hit. Unfortunately, the situation is poised to get worse as more adjustable rate mortgages reset, unemployment rates remain unabated, and subprime lending persists, particularly in communities of color.

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