Curious about grassroots organizing in Boston and beyond? Find a summary here. Learn more about the specific organizations below:
Boston Grassroots Organizations
Save Our Public Schools (MA) is a large grassroots group that organizes Massachusetts families, educators, students and community members in order to stop the opening of additional charter schools, advocate for local control of schools, ensure equal opportunity through education, oppose increased testing and increase funding for high-quality public schools. They are part of the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance and associated with the Boston Teachers Union. They organize rallies, assist political campaigns by canvassing and phone-banking, and have an active presence on social media keeping interested parties informed and notified of opportunities for action.
Massachusetts Teacher Association Grassroots is the “grassroots division” of the Massachusetts Teacher Association. They work with the MTA to promote community engagement and engage in political action. They assist in election campaigns for local representatives by door-knocking and phone-banking and providing human capital for other forms of campaigning. As a division of the MTA, they oppose charter schools and privatization, seek to end gun violence and high-stakes testing, and advocate for increased investment in public schools.
Black Educators’ Alliance of Massachusetts supports Black Educators in Massachusetts in their mission to better academic performance for all students, with particular attention to students of color. They share best practices, connect preschool through university educators, serve as a resource for parents and community members, and provide opportunities to support Black educators. BEAM opposes charter schools. The organize largely through membership meetings and social media advocacy.
Boston Education Justice Alliance Boston Ed Justice consists of students, parents, educators, works and community members of Boston. BEJA takes and anti-charter stance and advocates for the full funding of BPS. Most recently, BEJA has acted in coalition to demand Boston’s wealthiest nonprofit institutions pay their full share of PILOT contributions. They organized teachers to canvass against lifting the charter cap in 2016.
Quality for Every Student (QUEST) QUEST is a Boston-based grassroots organization comprised of parents. They challenge education policies and practices to dismantle past oppression, increase opportunity, and provide greater access to quality education for all. They oppose charter school. They organize to educate parents about issues arising in Boston schools.
Citizens for Public Schools is an organization made up of parens and community members dedicated to increasing equitable funding to public schools to ensure high quality education. They oppose charter schools and the diversion of tax dollars to schools outside the public system. The organize meetings, bring speakers to educate, track legislation, and mobilize parents and community members around legislative issues. They also have immense amounts of research and issue briefs on their website to provide education.
The Teacher Activist Group Network (Boston) is a chapter of the National Teacher Activist Group Network. They’re a coalition of educators fro the Boston area dedication to achieving human liberation through education. They seek to work with youth to dismantle oppression in school and society. They supports measures that keep public schools fully funded and oppose market-based school reforms including charters. They share curricular practices, organize teachers and “create anti-oppressive environments and practices that support and nurture activists.”
Grassroots Organizations Elsewhere
Save Our Schools Arizona is an organization started by women aimed at building strong schools in the State of Arizona. Their organizing efforts are directed towards opposing school choice voucher programs. They engage in community outreach meetings, canvassing for political candidates and ballot initiatives and educational and action-oriented trainings for parents and community members.
Senior High Alliance of Parents, Principals and Educators
is a Washington, DC-based organization dedicated to strengthening DC public schools and keeping those schools publicly managed. They hold monthly meetings a rotation of high schools and facilitate networks between parents, principles and educators at 17 DCPS high schools. Their advocacy is aimed toward fair and equitable budgeting of resources, improvement of educational policy evaluation tools and expanding educational opportunities for all students.
Photo Sources:
Save Our Public Schools: http://masspeaceaction.org/no-on-2-save-our-public-schools/
MTA Grassroots: https://twitter.com/MTAGrassroots
BEAM: http://www.beaminfo.org/home.html
Boston Ed Justice Alliance: https://bostonedjustice.org/
Citizens for Public Schools: https://www.citizensforpublicschools.org/
TAG: http://besj.weebly.com/about-us.html
SOSArizona: https://sosarizona.org/