Community organizing as a means of developing common interests

Many typical approaches to community involvement begin by trying to get parents into schools and often run into problems when not enough parents come through the doors. An alternative approach begins in the community and focuses on connecting the school to life and work all around it. These efforts recognize that parents, teachers, and other members of the educational system have diverse needs and perspectives, but strive to help find the common interests that can serve as the basis for joint work on school improvement.

The Alliance Schools, a network of schools in the southwestern United States, takes such an approach in their efforts to build a powerful constituency for improving education and other aspects of the local conditions in low-income neighborhoods (Hatch, 1998b; Shirley, 2002; Warren, 2005). Building on the community organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky and the work of the Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation, the Alliance Schools begin with efforts to build relationships throughout the community by:

• Surveying the members of the community and school to find common interests
• Using that information to fuel conversations and identify critical issues that many members of the community and school care about
• Pursuing an issue that can be addressed in a reasonable period of time

These efforts may focus inside or outside the school – on improving school facilities, repairing a playground, establishing a health clinic, addressing traffic problems or increasing safety. The joint work to address these issues builds relationships and establishes social capital that serve as a basis for further school improvement initiatives and community development work. Over time, the work together helps to build a political constituency that can advocate for schools in times of crisis as well as apply pressure when schools or districts seem resistant or unresponsive to community concerns.