Welcome

In low-income communities across the country, parents, young people and educators are finding new ways to work together to improve quality and address equity in public education. They are joining community organizing groups in building a new movement committed to transforming public education and working for social justice. Rather than being passive victims of an unjust system, through community organizing parents and young people are becoming active change agents in their schools and communities.

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A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform takes an in-depth look at this growing movement. Based on six case studies from across the country, this collaborative effort produced new understandings of the processes through which organizing groups build relationships and power among parents, students, educators, and other community members to create change in schools and communities.

Match is a product of the Community Organizing and School Reform project, a national research project, conducted by a collaborative of faculty and graduate students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In addition to the publication of the book, the project has also produced a series of teaching cases about sites featured in the book, and a number of related publications. The project also ran the National Community Organizing and School Reform Conference in March, 2012, for which materials and videos are available.