Community Organizing-Based School Reform as Emergence

• In Event: Getting to Bedrock: Diverse Perspectives on Emergence, Nonlinearity, and Relationality in Education

Abstract

Community Leadership

Over the last 15 years, significant literature has emerged that places the community at the center of school reform efforts (Beabout, 2008; Fabricant, 2010; Perry, Moses, et al, 2010, Oakes & Lipton, 2002; Shirley, 1997). Additionally, Warren (2005), in outlining various approaches to school-community collaboration, points out the necessity of these partnerships for equity-focused reforms.

Shirley (1997) examines the work of community organizers (led by Ernesto Cortes) with the Industrial Areas Foundation in Texas. This creates increased opportunities for poor and working-class communities of color in Texas. In much of this work, the connection between schools and communities serves as the primary engine that drives reform, and the primary fault for much of what passes for educational reform in developed nations.
Many scholars have outlined the common sense approach that urban school reform needs to take both educational and social actions if educational equity is truly a goal we hold dear. Oakes and Lipton (2002) outline three basic elements of community organizing as they might be applicable to social-justice oriented reforms. Relationships are created, dialogue ensues about common problems and preferred solutions, and the group takes action. Oakes and Lipton’s analysis notes that while more technical school reforms (altered curriculum, new assessments, new schedules) are well-served by the existing reform implementation literature (McLaughlin, 1990), reform efforts that directly address issues of social justice (de-tracking in their case-study), require broad-based coalitions to be successful. This is logical in that when schools take on broader social forces that exist outside of schools, limiting reform strategies to teachers and students is unlikely to overcome any conservative reaction from the public at-large. Cortés (2010) provides an image of what community leadership might look like.
Robert Cordova, principal of Harmony Elementary in the Los Angeles Unified School district, initially saw his work with the congregations and unions of One-LA IAF as a way to deflect the concerns of parents onto different institutions. However, once Cordova began to have conversations with and be mentored by other institutional leaders I his community, he began to see himself not just as a manager of crises, but as an educational leader in a network of institutions with a broader vision for the transformation of his school and community (p. 100).


At its heart, school reform as community organizing rests on the simple premise that those who are most impacted by our social institutions should have a say in how they are constructed and how they function (Sarason, 1995). Decisions made at the local level, often with expert facilitation and managing of conflict, are apt to be more effective in the short run, and build stronger capacity for good decisions in the long run.

Author

• Dennis Lynn Shirley, Boston College