Amount: $15,000
2015
National
The intergenerational J4J alliance is a diverse network of 35 community based organizations in 22 cities. Its membership reflects those most affected by the corporate market reforms of education in the United States: Black and Latino families who rely on public education. Through local and national coordinated community organizing, it advocates for policies and resources to achieve evidence-based, community-driven school improvement. Calling attention to the failures of market driven reforms, it works to strengthen local communities and help them manage – and, in the case of several majority Black cities, first win back – control of their own schools. Hazen’s renewal grant will support J4J’s work in three campaigns in the coming year: support for sustainable community schools; advocacy for Education as a Human Right, in conjunction with Amnesty International; and the restoral of community control to school boards in 5 predominantly Black cities in which either the state has seized control of the schools or local parents do not elect the school boards. Activities will include additional “Sustainable Community Schools Study Tours” and hosting “Listening Projects” in ten J4J cities. These sessions, co-hosted by Amnesty International, will use UN Human Rights frame to identify education as a human right in the US.