What's our message?

by Erika Owens on Sep 30 2010

The concluding discussion of  the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia's (PILCOP) Symposium on Equality Thursday returned to the keynote address earlier in the day, by Warren Simmons. Simmons urged attendees to look at who is "drawing the maps" of the current education debate.

He said those "cartographers" are a narrow group of leaders and corporate philanthropies. Communities are not dictating the agenda. Simmons said, "We have to build a community-centered platform for reform."

Michael Churchill of PILCOP pointed out the Notebook website is one place that people in Philly can share ideas and work on building that community. (Thanks, Michael!) The Education First Compact and Cross City Campaign for School Reform were also mentioned as ways that organizations regularly connect with one another.

Attendees discussed existing resources in Philly such as the Philadelphia Education Fund, PCCY, and Research for Action that can help build community leadership on education reform. Simmons suggested that the five essential supports for school reform identified by the Consortium on Chicago School Research would be a good start in developing the platform. 

What should a community-centered platform focus on? How do we develop that? Jennifer R. Clarke of PILCOP took notes on this discussion at the symposium, and we'll post those notes when they become available.

But what do you suggest?

We'll post more about the Chicago research on school reform and other topics from the symposium soon.