Education

Organizing, training and civic engagement are the keys to success in our neighborhoods. Through these activities, we awaken the spirit of leadership and empower residents to change the norms and expectations of community members, identify ways to make good use of tax dollars, and participate in a process that raises the academic expectation of all community members.

Our vision is to build and sustain a support system that transforms the cultural norms of academic excellence and lifelong learning as an essential foundational component of community life by becoming a leading provider of education reform strategies using Research Organizing Mobilization Education Method (ROME Method), thereby, developing community capacity to address residents’ concern about the quality of education in Chicago.

Our mission is to mobilize stakeholders to take an active role in addressing community’s education concern thereby building an education platform in the communities of Auburn Gresham, Englewood and West Garfield that challenges adult residents to become lifelong learners, youth to become eager pupils of study and community stakeholders to support and promote life-changing learning opportunities that can only take place in an environment of expectation for academic excellence.

Education Goals

Goal #1 – Increase academic achievement among elementary students in Auburn Gresham, Englewood and West Englewood.

• Objective 1 for Goal #1- Raise academic achievement levels of 2nd and 3rd grade students in Barton and Joplin in order to positively affect promotion rates among this population.
• Objective 2 for Goal #1 – Increase the quality of education in Auburn Gresham, Englewood and West Englewood by ensuring the maintenance of a pool of highly qualified culturally competent teachers for our local schools.
• Objective 3 for Goal #1- Increase the skill level of residents to work in the school.

Goal #2 – Develop collaborations with families, policy makers, school administrators and other stakeholders to prepare citizens to participate in the institution process and community dialogue regarding decisions that impact the area of education.

• Objective for Goal #2- Engage community support for the education issues that affect public life.

Goal #3 – Build the community support for a process that increases academic achievement and inspires community members to become working partners to promote academic excellence.

• Objective for Goal #3- Amass community support in order to build a platform for increased academic achievement that is sustained by stakeholder involvement.

In order to achieve these goals and objectives we have four areas of work under Education Initiatives.