A Philadelphia Story: Building Civic Capacity for School Reform in a Privatizing System - Executive Summary Dec 2007 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Maia Cucchiara, Cecily A. Mitchell, Morgan Riffer

Following the 2001 state takeover of the School District of Philadelphia, a new governance structure was established and an ambitious set of reforms went into effect, generating renewed public conf...

A Philadelphia Story: Building Civic Capacity for School Reform in a Privatizing System Dec 2007 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Maia Cucchiara, Cecily A. Mitchell, Morgan Riffer

Following the 2001 state takeover of the School District of Philadelphia, a new governance structure was established and an ambitious set of reforms went into effect, generating renewed public conf...

Public Education in Philadelphia: The Crucial Need for Civic Capacity in a Privatized Environment Mar 2007 Suzanne Blanc, Elaine Simon

This article explores the role of public engagement in Philadelphia public schools, answering the question of whether the form of private sector involvement now being pursued by the School District...

Time to Engage? Civic Participation in Philadelphia's School Reform Sep 2005 Eva Gold, Maia Cucchiara, Elaine Simon, Morgan Riffer

Philadelphia is at the forefront of a national trend towards privatization in education, making school reform in Philadelphia a topic of national and local consequence. The Philadelphia school dist...

Crafting a Civic Stage for Public Education Reform: Executive Summary Jun 2005 Elaine Simon, Jolley Bruce Christman, Tracey A. Hartmann, Diane C. Brown

Executive summary to the report offering a conceptual model for understanding the decisions that LEFs make as they go about shaping both organizational identity and an approach to their work.

Crafting a Civic Stage for Public Education Reform: Understanding the Work and Accomplishments of Local Education Funds Jun 2005 Elaine Simon, Jolley Bruce Christman, Tracey A. Hartmann, Diane C. Brown

This report is based on research focusing on understanding and assessing how Local Education Funds (LEFs)carryout their mission and demonstrate success. It offers a conceptual model for understand...

Cultural Leaders' Reflections on Cultural Participation and Preliminary Research May 2005 Elaine Simon, Gretchen E. L. Suess

This report was prepared for the Philadelphia Cultural Benchmark Project, a collaborative project between Research for Action, Audience Insight LLC, and the University of Pennsylvania's Social Impa...

Reframing Accountability for Urban Schools: Efforts from the Ground Up to Improve Public Education Apr 2005 Elaine Simon, Eva Gold

This paper, presented at the 2005 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) discusses the contributions of community organizing to current conceptions of accountability...

A New Conception of Parent Engagement: Community Organizing for School Reform Oct 2004 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Chris Brown

This chapter provides an indicators framework for understanding the contributions of community organization to school reform and a theory of change model that shows the link between school improvem...

Bringing Community Organizing into the School Reform Picture Sep 2004 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Leah M. Mundell, Chris Brown

Community organizing is growing in importance as a means of achieving and sustaining urban school reform. The authors identify eight distinct areas in which community organizing groups are connecti...

Meanings of Cultural Participation at the Neighborhood Level: A Focus Group Analysis Apr 2004 Leah M. Mundell, Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Gretchen E. L. Suess

This report was prepared for the Philadelphia Cultural Benchmark Project, a collaborative project between Research for Action, Audience Insight LLC, and the University of Pennsylvania's Social Impa...

Civic Leadership & State Takeover in Public Education: Conflict or Convergence Mar 2004 Elaine Simon, Eva Gold, Leah M. Mundell, Morgan Riffer, Maia Cucchiara

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Urban Affairs Association. In this paper, the authors explore the transition from the previous reform era in Philadelphia to a radically differ...

Public Accountability: School Improvement Efforts Need The Active Involvement of Communities to Succeed Jan 2004 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon

The Philadelphia-based Research for Action and the Chicago-based Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform recently conducted a national study that examines the work of community organizing group...

Locating Local Education Funds: A Conceptual Framework for Describing LEF's Contribution to Public Education Jan 2004 Diane C. Brown, Jolley Bruce Christman, Tracey A. Hartmann, Elaine Simon

This report presents the findings of RFA's intitial literature review of research and other writings and documentation on local education funds as well as other education reform nonprofits working ...

Reframing Accountability for Urban Public Schools Jun 2003 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Chris Brown

Based on their research with community-organizing groups, Eva Gold and Elaine Simon from Research for Action and Chris Brown from the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform describe four strat...

Community Organizing Creates a New Form of Accountability Mar 2003 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon

This article discusses the contributions of community organizing to current conceptions of accountability for the success of public school reform. The authors first explain two predominant models t...

Strong Neighborhoods, Strong Schools: Case Study: Austin Interfaith Mar 2002 Elaine Simon, Eva Gold, Chris Brown

Austin Interfaith, founded in 1985, is a multi-issue group made up of forty-five religious congregations, schools, and other institutions. Austin Interfaith is an affiliate of the Texas Industrial...

Strong Neighborhoods, Strong Schools: A Series of Reports on the Findings of the Indicators Project on Education Organizing Mar 2002 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Chris Brown

This report series, produced through the Education Organizing Indicators Project, presents a methodology for documenting the contribution of community organizing to school reform. The Project stem...

Strong Neighborhoods, Strong Schools: Case Study: New York ACORN Mar 2002 Elaine Simon, Marcine Pickron-Davis

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is a nation-wide, multi-issue organization composed of neighborhood-based chapters that organize communities to advance the interes...