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Strong Civic Organizations
Background
The phrase Civic Organizations calls to mind a wide range of images - from a small neighborhood book club to a large nationally organized network of community groups. However, each of these efforts, no matter the size, has a common thread: they create links. These links form into the chain that holds strong civic networks together. When you see references to Civic or Community Organizations in the text that follows, we mean any grouping of individuals, small or large, who organize themselves to promote a cause that is good for public education.

Also, we have narrowed the topics we introduce in this document to those that are addressed in PEN's Civic Index Poll. This poll is based on a series of public forums and surveys conducted across the nation over a five year period. As a result of this effort, we have identified indicators or common qualities that encourage meaningful involvement in public education. As you read through the information in this series of support tools, consider the situation in your community carefully.

How can you use the information and suggestions included in this material to help you build stronger civic involvement in education in your community?

PEN's Civic Index Indicators for Community Organizations are:

• Local organizations create opportunities to gather citizen input on education issues and to inform community members about where candidates for elected office stand on these issues

• Local organizations provide help for those most in need and pay special attention to low-performing schools

• Local organizations share resources with schools, including expertise, funding, volunteers, and coordination of health and social services

• Local organizations define and advocate for public school accountability

• The public is actively involved in community organizations that partner with the schools

Throughout this document, we also use two other words we need to define: advocacy and accountability. While there are many definitions for advocacy and accountability, we have chosen to define them as:

• Advocacy - Using words and actions to encourage decision-makers and other stakeholders to draw on the resources, experiences, knowledge, and skills available at the school and in the larger community to meet the needs of every child.

• Accountability - Holding a person or institution responsible for taking the actions necessary to achieve an expectation or result.

Using this Resource

As you explore the ideas presented in this material, you will find new ways to involve community organizations in education. You will have an opportunity to:

• Think about the roles community organizations can play in your school community

• Learn about new strategies to improve the work of community organizations

• Plan for ways to use this information in your school community

Remember that by making use of this material, you have taken a first step in your new role as an advocate for involving Community Organizations in public education in your school community. However, the most important thing in exploring new materials is determining how you use the materials. You can choose to study them as an individual or you can look over them with others who also are interested in this topic.

Click here to download the Strong Civic Organizations worksheet to help you work through the new things you have learned. You can use this as a tool to take down your own thoughts or as a worksheet for group discussion.

Exploring and Organizing the Indicators
Though each of the indicators is separate, each also connects with all the others. When members of a community organization provide transportation for those wanting to vote in a school board election, they are supporting public education in their community. When community organizations host information sessions on key educational issues, individual members often discover ways in which they can contribute to school improvement. This is true of all of the indicators. Each indicator may stand alone, but it also is an interrelated part within the situation of Community Organizations that become involved in education. For this category, rather than separate each indicator for discussion, we've combined them into the following topics:

Involving the public in education reform

This simple statement actually sums up the goal of a democratic education process - the public - you, your neighbors, all the members of your community - become involved in processes that help to build a stronger educational system that serves all children in the community. When groups combine their resources to support key education reform issues they cannot only make schools better, they will raise their Civic Index Score.

To increase the involvement of community organizations in education reform, groups should include activities to:

• Provide help to those who don't vote due to circumstances that prevent them from voting along with help on other political events that affect education and

• Raise awareness of the school's responsibility to educate every child and the responsibility of all community members to contribute to each child's education.

When community organizations are actively involved in supporting education through activities that encourage civic involvement in education, the children in the community will benefit.

Identifying and advocating for important education issues

Strong community support for education is very important for all schools. Furthermore, when community organizations focus their interest and resources on a few important issues, their attention produces better results than those obtained from a scattered approach. Resources for both schools and community organizations are limited. When community organizations work closely with school staff and parents to identify and advocate for important education issues, they can raise their Civic Index Scores and encourage meaningful reform.

To increase and make the best use of their efforts, community organizations should include activities to:

• Raise awareness that everyone in the community can contribute to efforts to improve education,

• Promote opportunities to involve all stakeholders in identifying the students and schools with the greatest needs, and

• Support schools in the efforts to publicize and act on accountability measures.

By focusing their efforts on important education issues, community organizations can ensure that their efforts will have the greatest effect on education in their community.

Building and helping resource networks to last

Unfortunately, all of us have had experiences with efforts that are here today and gone tomorrow. By contrast, effective reform is a continuous process that includes strategies that build the ability of those involved in order to make sure programs will still be around even when staff or participants change. Too many cooks may spoil the broth, but if the recipe dies with the chief cook, no one will ever taste the dish again. To raise your Civic Index Score in this category, community organizations need to have clearly defined methods for building skills, knowledge, and experience, and helping the project goals and activities to last.

To increase the efforts of community organizations to build and make resource networks last, people involved need to:

• Build an inclusive culture that encourages all groups to organize together to support education and;

• Promote skills and experience that lead to program sustainability, such as leadership, team building, knowledge of key issues, and others.

There is no way to overemphasize the importance of building efforts that will have a long-lasting effect on education. Every child in the community, current and future, benefits when community organizations organize with school-based or non-school-based groups to unite funds, activities, and other resources to encourage quality educational programs.

Overview of Research and Best Practices in this Field
A growing body of research exists with findings and recommendations that can guide the involvement of community organizations in public education. Recent research shows that community organizations can play important roles in public education reform. However, this research also shows the challenges that community organizations face.

A large part of what community organizations can do to build school-community partnerships is to involve parents and other community members or groups in school reform issues. Community organizations are well-suited to a range of important roles that build constituency for public education. One set of roles includes facilitating information exchange, relationship-building, and leadership development in and out of schools. For example, Local Education Funds work with school districts and communities fill these roles in many high-poverty urban and rural districts across the country.

A second set of roles involves brokering and linking schools with a range of health and social services to ensure that children and even their families have access to the range of supports needed to ensure their academic, social, and emotional growth and success.

Community Organizing
A number of recent studies have shown that community organizing and school reform efforts are most often focused on high-need schools and important education issues such as resource inequalities and low student achievement. These issues have a stimulating power due to their urgency. However, they also can be highly emotional issues that take careful planning and organizing by all participants in the reform process.

The work of 'community organizating' in public education nearly always involves an attempt to change the power structures in public education. The education system is traditionally a hierarchical structure in which parents and students are customers. Often, the work of community organizers is to level that structure so parents and the community have more decision-making power. A number of research studies describe the challenges and benefits in steering a school community through a change in power structures.

Community organizations often take a lead role in becoming partners and encouraging schools and communities to make education reforms. Acting as groups who bring about change, these organizations bring resources, networks, and expertise that are necessary to start a school-community partnership. Moreover, building partnerships that will last and transferring leadership roles to schools and parents are often key parts of these efforts.

Community organizations are not always fully informed on the issues being addressed through a reform effort, although publicized report cards are having an effect on this issue. In order to bring credibility to their work and hold schools accountable for teaching and learning, community organizations need correct information and data on schools. Successful efforts commonly stress the importance of information gathering and make use of a number of different data sources.

When community organizations support education, there are many benefits to the school community:

• Bridges that connect all constituency groups - parents, school staff, service organizations, community groups, and others - in supporting education

• Greater awareness of the educational needs of the community, and what is being done to address those needs

• Greater distribution of leadership roles and shared decision-making

• Additional resources to support schools

As you work to increase the involvement of community organizations in supporting education, remember that each community is unique. Because each community has its own situation, there is no one-size-fits-all method to put these programs into action. However, when people involved:

• come up with meaningful ways to involve the public in education reform,

• focus efforts on clearly identified important education issues and encourage advocacy roles, and

• provide structures that allow all involved to build and help resource networks to last;

• these efforts can provide new resources to support student needs.

Key Issues
The information is this section is designed to provide understanding of key issues related to efforts to encourage the involvement of Community Organizations in education reform. As we said in the first section, we have limited the key issues to those related to the indicators.

These issues are important for the success of education reform efforts led by local organizations:

Key Issue 1: Advocacy and Accountability-Who Is Responsible for What?

Public education involves a range of competing interests. Schools within a district compete for limited resources; parents advocate for different special services that will support their children's success. In addition, community organizations have their own goals and things they think are important. As each of these stakeholder groups pursues their own interests, they take on advocacy roles and assign accountability roles to various stakeholders. When advocacy is not clearly focused on important issues or when accountability is laid at the wrong door, the results can be disagreement and conflict. The reality is that each group views the same issues through different eyes. Political, personal, or other biases can create blocks to meaningful reform.

However, community organizations can work toward shared understanding of important issues, advocacy roles, creation of leaders, and greater involvement for all stakeholder groups. They can focus and unite all groups on common goals that will ensure that each child receives a quality public education.

Key Issue 2: Ability-How Can Community Organizations Become the Catalyst for Education Reform?

One of the most difficult and widespread obstacles to education reform is building the ability and will to change education policy and practice. However, we know that if we are to succeed in these efforts, every one in the process, no matter the role, no matter the responsibility, has to be fully involved in activities that:

• Build ability by encouraging greater knowledge of key issues and needs and

• Encourage everyone concerned to become involved in the new reform efforts

As groups on the outside with access to resources that can make the change process easier, community organizations can fill an important role for public education. Community organizations can organize and build public support for change; serve as a bridge between the public and school officials; broker relationships and supports among schools and other community partners; and provide the information, leadership training, and planning support needed in effective partnerships.

Key Issue 3: Effective Data Use-What Do We Need To Make Good Decisions?

Each of us has heard a teacher, administrator, newscaster, community leader, or politician say the words standards, accountability, research, and data-driven planning and decision making, or access when speaking about school reform. While the ease of use of these words communicates a message of importance, how do we make sure that educational decisions are based on best practices associated with these terms? More importantly, how do we make sense of the wealth of information that does exist and distribute it in ways that are easily understood by the general public?

Community organizations can serve as bridge builders for sharing and creating tools for understanding data and best practices. Since they are outside of the system, they can represent differing viewpoints and help school staff to understand the needs of the general public as well as the reverse.

Once you've completed the Civic Index Poll in your community find out how you can improve your score in this category by visiting the Tips and Strategies section.