Uneven Playing Field: Demographic Differences and High School 'Choice' in Philadelphia Mar 2010 Deborah Good, Eva Gold, Shani Adia Evans, Clarisse Haxton, Holly Plastaras Maluk, Cecily A. Mitchell, Elaine Simon

Every fall, eighth graders participate in the School District of Philadelphia's high school application and admissions process, vying for spots in a tiered system of public high schools across the ...

Transition to High School: School 'Choice' and Freshman Year in Philadelphia Feb 2010 Eva Gold, Shani Adia Evans, Clarisse Haxton, Holly Plastaras Maluk, Cecily A. Mitchell, Elaine Simon, Deborah Good

The School District of Philadelphia's tiered system of selective, nonselective, and charter high schools, and the process for high school choice, has created real variation in the degree to which h...

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...

Strong Neighborhoods, Strong Schools: The Education Organizing Indicators Framework: A User's Guide Mar 2002 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Chris Brown

This guide is designed to help foundation program officers, educators and organizers understand and use the Education Organizing Indicators Framework to understand and advance the work of community...

Strong Neighborhoods, Strong Schools: Successful Community Organizing for School Reform - Executive Summary Mar 2002 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Chris Brown

This one-of-a-kind research project documents the results that empowered parents achieve in improving academic achievement and in strengthening community capacity.

Strong Neighborhoods, Strong Schools: Successful Community Organizing for School Reform Mar 2002 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Chris Brown

This report, the overview document for the report series 'Strong Neighborhoods, Strong Schools,' presents a process for documenting the contributions of community organizing to improving schools th...

Strong Neighborhoods, Strong Schools: Case Study: Oakland Community Organizations Mar 2002 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Chris Brown

Oakland Community Organizations (OCO) is composed of several dozen faith-based organizations whose congregants participate in OCO through the religious institution to which they belong. Affiliated...

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...

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: Case Study: Alliance Organizing Project Mar 2002 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Chris Brown

The Alliance Organizing Project (AOP) is a Philadelphia-based, single-issue parent organizing group with the goal of making parents and families 'full partners' in public school reform. AOP was fo...

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: Appendix Case Studies 2002 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Chris Brown

The appendix brings together the five case studies of community organizing groups carried out as part of the Indicators Project on Education Organizing. Each report describes the background and co...

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...

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...

Reforming Alone: Barriers to Organizational Learning in Urban School Change Initiatives 1997 Elizabeth Useem, Jolley Bruce Christman, Eva Gold, Elaine Simon

A review and synthesis of findings from evaluations of nine separate professional development initiatives implemented in urban schools. This article identifies school and district policies and stru...

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...

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...

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...