Alliance Schools Initiative of the Interfaith Education Fund
Gaining Influence in Schools Nurtures Parents' Leadership Skills
Anyone who doubts the promise of community-based school reforms need look no further than the Alliance Schools Initiative. Operating in schools throughout Texas and six other states, the Alliance Schools Initiative engages parents as full partners in a broad effort to make schools more effective.
At Alliance schools, the payoff occurs when parents become full partners who are as interested in innovative educational theories as the educational experts themselves. When that moment arrives, one more family has strengthened one more neighborhood by connecting with a larger network to improve the outcomes for children. And, the confidence parents gain as they help direct their children's education tends to spill over into every aspect of the family's life.
Educators say the Alliance's approach often challenges the very orthodoxies of the school reform movement. It regularly is held up as a successful model of a program that bridges the gap between school personnel, parents, and the community at large. The Alliance's secret isn't mysterious. It lies less in parent involvement than in parent engagement.
The Alliance's roots go back to 1974, when the first of the Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation organizations was established to help poor families gain the power to improve their lives. Eight years ago the Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation and the Interfaith Education Fund formally began the Alliance Schools Initiative with fewer than 20 school campuses in Texas. Last year, from its base in Austin, the Alliance was active in 118 schools in Texas that enrolled 80,000 students - 95 percent of whom are Latino and African American, and 83 percent of whom are economically disadvantaged families they work with have little income, little formal education, and little hope that schools will be responsive to their needs.
Through door-to-door organizing, house meetings, block meetings, and parish and school meetings, Alliance leaders work to make schools the center of the communities and, in so doing, put the families and their communities at the center of change in the schools. Its goal is not just to change the system of education, but to change the culture of schools and the entire neighborhood.
Community organizers form the backbone of the Alliance efforts. Acting as gentle but persistent agitators, organizers are hired and trained to discover the mutual interests of everyone who has a stake in the school and community, from parents and community leaders to teachers, principals, and custodians. At individual, house, and community meetings they seek out people who exhibit all the qualities of leadership - anger, humor, curiosity, and creativity. Anger? The Alliance likes the type of anger - not hate - that prompts people to express concern for the future of children: "What will become of these kids in 10 years'?"
With regular conversations and training sessions, Alliance organizers teach parents that accountability does not mean blaming educators and administrators, but means taking responsibility for negotiating solutions with them. Through these efforts, Alliance schools have helped families find a way to help one another to restructure the school-community relationship. Alliance schools have adopted new curriculums, spurred teachers to greater creativity, and involved parents in teacher training. At special meetings, families and educators have learned how to parse a budget and negotiate with school officials. And the Alliance has helped address special problems, ranging from establishing a health center in one school to fixing traffic problems at another.
Alliance schools have a demonstrated record of improving students' test scores. As important as higher test scores are for any reform effort's credibility, however, the Alliance argues that schools can achieve good scores but still be unhappy and uncreative places with little relevance to a student's life. As a result, the Alliance is seeking ways to evaluate schools that go beyond test scores.
Alliance leaders think they know the outlines of such a successful school reform movement.
It comes when principals see themselves as leaders of an educational team, and teachers feel free to employ creative ideas in the classroom. It is a process that turns families and members of the community into educational reform leaders. And, most of all, it results in a school where the collaboration involving families is real and the benefit for each student is evident.