Grassroots Organizations

  1. Journey for Justice Alliance (Chicago, IL)
    An alliance grassroots of community, youth, and parent-led organization in 24 cities across the country, organizing to win community-driven alternatives to the privatization of and dismantling of public school system. Journey for Justice intentionally carves a space for organized low-income and working class communities, who are directly impacted by top-down corporate education interventions.7

  2. Parents Unified for Local School Education (Newark, NJ)
    A parent-led grassroots organization created to train and mobilize parents. PULSE aims to support and
     assure a high quality public education for all children by informing parents about education issues and parents’ rights, bringing parents into the decision making process, empowering parents in their role as advocates for their children, and assisting them in their interactions within the school system.8

  3. New York City Coalition for Educational Justice (New York, NY)
    A parent-led movement for educational equity and excellence in the city’s public schools. Parents, community residents and teachers collaborate together to fight to ensure that every child in NYC receives a quality and well-rounded education.9

  4. Urban Youth Collaborative (New York, NY)
    A student-led youth organization to bring together New York City students to fight for real education reform that puts students first. Urban Youth Collaborate strives to empower young people to directly challenge and shift the school-to-prison pipeline and build a strong youth voice that can ensure high schools prepare students to go to college, earn a living wage, and work for justice in society.
    10

  5. Philadelphia Student Union
    A youth-led organization to build the power of young people to demand a high quality education in the Philadelphia public school system. The Philadelphia Student Union make positive changes in the short term by learning how to organize to build power, and work toward becoming life-long learners and leaders who can bring diverse groups of people together to address the problems that our communities face.11

  6. Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (Minneapolis, MN)
    A grassroots, member-led organization building power in under-resourced communities and communities of color across the Twin Cities. NOC members fight for racial and economic justice by building powerful, active campaigns for quality public education.12

  7. Parents United for Public Education (Philadelphia, PA)
    A parent-led citywide organization focused on engaging parents with the budget process in order to ensure a baseline level of resources, services, staffing provides every child in every school a stable, quality and nurturing school environment. Parents United for Public Education provides strong parent voices to challenge perceptions of disengaged parents or “broken” families and school communities, working to build multiracial coalitions of parents to improve school practices, fight for renewed funding, and build public support for our schools.13

  8. Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools
    Comprised of students, parents and teachers, the Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools commits to improve Philadelphia’s school system. PCAPS want all Philadelphia schools – whether public or charter – to be adequately funded based on their need. Recently, PCAPS endorsed the call for a one year moratorium on school closings.14

  9. Youth United for Change (Philadelphia, PA)
    Youth United for Change’s model of youth-led advocacy supports students to have a voice in creating systemic change, as they simultaneously develop themselves as critical young leaders. YUC organizes campaigns geared towards ensuring high quality public education for all young Philadelphians, and develops young leaders in Philadelphia with a critical political, historical, and economic understanding of society, and to empower them to improve the quality of their lives and communities. Diverse group of young people comes together to identify common concerns, and act collectively as key stakeholders to create strategies to influence policy-making with the goal of carrying out comprehensive educational reforms in the Philadelphia public school system.15

  10. Teacher Action Group (Philadelphia, PA)
    Teacher-led grassroots organization while partnering with parent, student, and community groups, to foster positive school transformation, environments where students and teachers can thrive, and community ownership and influence within education. TAG believes that education is essential to the preservation of civil and human rights and is a tool of human liberation. Every child has a right to a high quality, equitably funded, public education.16



7. Journey for Justice Alliance. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.j4jalliance.com/aboutj4j/
8. Parents Unified for Local School Education (2016). Retrieved from http://www.pulsenj.org/home.html
9. NYC Coalition for Educational Justice (2017). Retrieved from http://www.nyccej.org/
10. Urban Youth Collaborative (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.urbanyouthcollaborative.org/
11. Philadelphia Student Union (2017). Retrieved from https://phillystudentunion.org/mission/
12. MN Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mnnoc.org/
13. Parents United for Public Education (n.d.). Retrieved from https://parentsunitedphila.com/
14. Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools (n.d.) Retrieved from https://wearepcaps.wordpress.com/
15. Youth United for Change (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.youthunitedforchange.org/
16. Teacher Action Group (n.d.). Retrieved from http://tagphilly.org/