The efforts of the SF Families Union reflect many of the characteristics of Saul Alinsky’s Tradition of Organizing, characterized by recruitment and campaigns as a means of organizational strategy, organizational development as a focus of development, and the organizer as a teacher-guide. The Union’s work exemplifies the ideals of community organizing that McAlister and Catone emphasize: “Community organizing focuses on the long-term process of building shared power in communities that have little. It starts from the proposition that communities that lack financial power or political power have people power–that is, the power of collective action.” The parents and families that construct the SF Families Union By building broad networks of relationships and developing grassroots leadership, the communities that have been least well served by public institutions develop the power to engage meaningfully and equally with decision makers and hold them accountable.” In education its network about active threats to its mission, such as Innovate Public Schools, SF Families Union is characterized by an organization strategy reflective of some of Friere’s ideas about community organization, especially the need to “‘read’ the political and social situation in which [one] lives ” in order to transform it.” (Martinson & Su, 66).

SF Families Union also uses Freirian models of liberation education that involves “groups com[ing] together in “culture circles” to listen to each other, engage in dialogue about the struggles in their lives and the social and historical roots of those struggles, envision and employ collective actions to create change, and reflect upon those actions as they develop further actions for change (Wallerstein and Bernstein 1988 ). Thus, the act of learning is not divorced from the social, economic, and political conditions of their everyday lives.” They differ, of course, in their driving principles and motivations. The SF Families Union is certainly “more” Alinskyite in its direct goals of challenging school privatization and charter efforts and actively trying to overturn the school choice model that has resegregated districts and created racially isolated SFUSD schools. Whether these goals are “winnable” (which Alinsky underscores as a main criteria for this approach) is rather contested, but the goals of the Union are much more focused on directly addressing and changing the problem in context of racially isolated schools and opportunity gaps. The Union reflects Freirian values in its liberators education practices, as well. Focused on ensuring the community understands the issues surrounding it, the SF Families union translates SF city policy and SFUSD information into Spanish and Mandarin in order to ensure families understand systems such as the school choice model. In Freirian fashion, the Union believes one has to understand what is happening before they can use their voice to change their circumstances. 

The Alliance to Reclaim our Schools actively employs the ideals of Ella Baker and Saul Alinsky, by focusing on a massive base of power, participatory democracy, and using voice to create change in political action. Saul Alinsky was a believer in identifying controversial issues that would spark action from individuals. In the San Francisco Case, the issue is widening opportunity gaps for students of color and fewer resources. The ASOR 2016 day of action in San Francisco was a call to action to vote YES on CA proposition 55 and proposition W, both of which tax the ultra-rich more heavily to ensure more funding is allocated to K-12 public schools. This effort also reflects the political undertones of Ella Baker’s participatory democracy model. Both Alinsky and Baker’s ideologies are reflected in the “power to the people” ideals of Alliance to Reclaim our Schools.

Two of Alisnky’s famous Rules for Radicals are “Keep the pressure on. Never let up. and “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” The AROS is unrelenting in its efforts; between its weekly NewsBlasts that constantly advertise news and ways to get involved in organizing, and frequent nation-wide marches and rallies,  the organization attempts to stay relevant and present. Additionally, its strategies are very simple. Its main actions are showing up and literally walking (something most people can do very easily), and talking to people to learn about news ways to get involved. The strategy is very simple and does not involve hard-to-access technology or expertise. This all points to Alinsky’s original value of strength in numbers. The AROS focuses on a large base, simple goals such as funding reallocation or encouraging voting behavior, and an unrelenting presence within communities, marked by yearly days of actions in cities across the country.

Both organizations strongly reflect the ideals of Alinsky, Freire, and Baker, and as all organizing does, represents the driving force of the voice of the many against policies created by a select few. In alignment with Baker’s ideals, both the SF Families Union and the AROS have small leadership teams who ensure everything runs smoothly, but this leadership is not synonymous with hierarchical structure. Freire’s focus on education is seen through the SF Families Unions actions of creating blueprint guides for families who do not speak english, helping them understand things such as the school-assignment policy, in order to create change for themselves. Lastly, Alinsky’s values are reflected particularly in the work of the AROS, who relies on high turn out for more simple, easily-verbalized desires for change. 

photo 1: https://ageofrevolutions.com/2017/07/17/paulo-freire-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-and-a-revolutionary-praxis-for-education-part-i/

photo 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Baker

photo 3: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/09/saul-alinsky-secretly-controls-hillary-too.html