New York City School Reform

Throughout the mid-1990s, the RBF sought to foster increased civic responsibility for school improvement in New York City, especially through encouraging parent involvement. In 1994, it made a grant to the Public Education Association to support a parent organizing and training effort in East New York. A 1995 retreat at the Pocantico Conference Center drew parent activists from all five boroughs to discuss citywide organizing. A grant to Mothers on the Move supported the Parent Organizing Consortium, while a planning grant to the City University of New York helped it address how to build the intellectual capital of parents to enable their participation in policy debates. And a grant to the Center for Voting and Democracy aided its effort to make the school board election process more accessible. In 1996, a new state law for public school governance offered new opportunities for parental and community involvement, and the RBF increased its parent-focused grants, extending its efforts to new neighborhoods, often through church-based programs such as the South Bronx Churches Sponsoring Committee, the Mount Zion Baptist Church of Bensonhurst, and the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Committee.

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Parent Surveys in Washington Heights, New York City, date unknown.

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