Student Grassroots Organizations
Baltimore Algebra Project is run by students to help their peers excel in advanced Math. Students who are in the most challenged communities often find themselves with the least resources. This organization supports socially and financially tutors to provide quality education and opportunities for Baltimore City Youth.
Philadelphia Student Union (PSU)
Philadelphia Student Union is one of the most successful student-led and operate unions in the country. They advocate for fairer policies in schooling like the ending of zero tolerance policies and construction of new schools in their most challenged neighborhood. By learning to use and then using the political process, PSU has become an organization that all superintendents must respect before making policy changes.
Youth United for Change takes the interests of youth of color interested in public education in Philadelphia and helps them to become their own advocates. This organization galvanizes support to help keep funding in their community and prevent the charter school take-over that is destroying many school-district’s communities.
Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC) brings together New York City students to fight for education reform. These students make an impact in New York by fighting for a school system that disrupts the school-to-prison pipeline by creating and sustaining the students throughout high school. Education extends to economics for these students as they continue to press leaders to make an affordable economic base a possibility for them by getting them to and through college.
Teacher Grassroots Organizations
Association of Raza Educators (A.R.E.)
Association of Raza Educators (A.R.E) is a group of educators, professors, and community activist who are interested in supporting Los Angeles students by bringing a consciousness to the education system to appreciate marginalized voices that are too often shutout. This organization has re-created Professional Development for its community. Instead of preparing for test assessments, they work to build culturally relevant work to positively impact their students.
Educators’ Network for Social Justice
Educators’ Network for Social Justice (ENSJ) Milwaukee is an organization of classroom teachers, teacher educators, and community activists, who strive for educational justice. Most of their work is geared toward making changes to the curricula and political advocacy. ENSJ is geared toward anti-racist and anti-bias pedagogy in the classroom and in their student’s experiences outside of the classroom. They’ve worked to stop the spread of mayoral control and colonization of their classroom curriculum.
New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) is a group of current and former public school educators by organizing and mobilizing teachers, developing curriculum, and working with students and community members. They work to make the struggle for social justice active in both the inside and the outside of the classroom.
Pin@y (Pinay/Pinoy) Educational Partnerships (PEP)
The Pin@y (Pinay/Pinoy) Educational Partnerships (PEP) creates a “partnership triangle” between the university, public schools, and the community to develop this counter-pipeline that produces critical educators to help students from elementary school through college. Having Filipino students represented in the people who teach them matters. This organization allows those teachers to bring their whole self into the classroom and into the curriculum to affect positive change with their students.
Teacher Action Group – Philadelphia
TAG Philadelphia turns teachers activist with strong partnership dedicated to making the school environment one where all kids have an equal opportunity to learn and to engage as their more privileged peers. TAG has developed campaigns to counter teacher layoffs, as well as create liberating environments for students by removing the standardization of tests and welcoming the diversity of student thought that is within the classroom.
Teachers for Social Justice (TSJ) is an organization of teachers and allies across the education spectrum in Chicago. They work to create atmospheres in their classrooms “that are anti-racist, multicultural / multilingual, and grounded in the experiences of our students.” They make educators’ voices heard amidst the hierarchal cry from above for better test scores in places without enough resources for textbooks, or an understanding of the students they serve on a daily basis.