Posted on October 13, 2003

Education

Through its Pathways Out of Poverty program, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation in Flint, Michigan, has provided more than $24 million in grants to community-driven school reform initiatives since 1990. One of those, the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform, a national network of school reform advocates, is examined in more detail in Initiative Strengthens Lessons on School Reform, an article on the Mott Web site. According to the piece, the efforts of Cross City members have been critical to reforms in Oakland, where adoption of a "small schools" policy resulted in the creation of several schools with low student-to-teacher ratios; Chicago, where the Logan Square Neighborhood Association worked with parents, teachers, and the local community to secure construction of two new middle schools and five school annexes; and New York City, where the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a Mott grantee, mobilized parents and community members to lobby for the creation of three high schools designed to meet the academic and social needs of low-income youth and their families. The article also offers links to relevant reports and Web sites.