Organizations:
Massachusetts Community Action Network,
Massachusetts Jobs With Justice
Boston Education Justice Alliance
Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance
Boston Teachers Union (BTU)
The Power of Community Organizing
In late November of 2019, the Landmark Education act was signed into Massachusetts law. This act approved a 1.5 billion dollar budget for public school funding. After decades of ineffective policies and funding formulas, Massachusetts has finally committed the necessary amount of resources to public education. The landmark education act allows schools to spend 20,700 dollars per student, this is a 25% increase since 2016 (Larkin, 2019). Massachusetts is one of the very first states to properly address the insufficient funding problem for public education. Through years of persistence and frustration grassroots organizing has finally tallied a win.
Organizations like Youth on Board, MCAN, BEJA, MEJA, and much more work tirelessly for many years going from city to city, town to town spreading their message. The movement strengthened over time and eventually the government could not ignore the issue any longer. These organizations made themselves heard through a number of different voices, whether is as a collaboration with political officials or inspiring the next generation to stand up for educational inequalities. For example, Youth on Board focused on giving the students a voice in the matter especially since the whole movement was run by adults. They created student-run councils. These councils gave the students a stage to express themselves as young organizers. Organizations like Youth on Board motivated individuals to take to the streets and excite the community into action. MEJA helped to center the voices of communities of color throughout Massachusetts, “students and parents brought a framework of racial justice to the public debate that won funding for English language learners and low-income students”(Scott Foundation, 2019). The organizations committed to this issue captured the passion and voices of the Boston and greater Massachusetts population and directed that passion towards the state government and their negligence.
It wasn’t just grassroots organizations that fought for students, several unions recognized the significance of insufficient school funding and took to the streets. The Boston Teachers Union focused on charter schools and the dysfunctional systems implemented to fund and manage them. These systems are set up in a way that designates individual schools responsible for the funding of charter schools even though they are not public institutions. Over time it is expected that the state reimburses the districts, however, throughout the state, only two-thirds of the money spent by the districts has been properly reimbursed. This essentially means that public school districts are spending money they really don’t have on charter schools instead of materials and programs. The BTU has addressed this issue through community organizing as well as the creation of a partition that has been sent directly to state officials responsible for the matter. They also put the officials’ emails on the BTU website and encouraged the community to express their anger and disappointment through email.
Sources
Larkin, Max. “Boston Public Schools Debuts Its Latest ‘Largest-Ever’ Budget.” Boston Public Schools Debuts Its Latest ‘Largest-Ever’ Budget | Edify. WBUR, February 6, 2019. https://www.wbur.org/edify/2019/02/06/boston-public-schools-debuts-its-latest-largest-ever-budget.
“Grassroots Organizing Just Won $1.5 Billion for Public Schools.” Schott Foundation for Public Education, 27 Nov. 2019, schottfoundation.org/blog/2019/11/27/grassroots-organizing-just-won-15-billion-public-schools.