Education Organizing Study

About this grant

The Education Organizing Study, a project of the Institute for Education and Social Policy at New York University, was developed to examine the value of community organizing for school improvement and increased student achievement. The eight sites involved in the six-year study were selected based on their long-term commitment to education organizing and the visibility their education organizing has achieved, both locally and nationally. The study was designed to examine the relationship between the process of building and using community-based organizational power and increasing capacity for improved student outcomes.Multiyear funding will support the second phase of the project: expanding the qualitative data collection by including students, school system officials, school staff and members of other groups seeking to influence education reform; and convening a research symposium to discuss critical challenges to school reform organizing and research.Accomplishments during the first phase included conducting visits to each site; conducting interviews with local education reform organizations and advocates at each site; collecting statistical and demographic data; implementing a survey of members from each site; and preparing detailed notes on each site for telephone follow-up.