The Hewlett Foundation supports Californians for Justice (CFJ) Education Fund  to help coordinate an expanding coalition of grassroots and community-based groups (the Education Justice Collaborative).  The grant will help collaborating organizations continue efforts to connect local community organizing with statewide school reform efforts.  The activities planned for this year include (1) strengthening the existing collaboration among the coalition partners; (2) broadening the network to include other grassroots organizers in the state interested in statewide school reform; and (3) educating and informing parents, students, teachers, and other education stakeholders of opportunities for education reform in proposals to implement California's Master Plan for K-12 Education and the teacher quality provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act.

CFJ strengthens the California reform initiatives by linking the research and policy analysis work we currently support to grassroots organizers that reach a broad audience of parents, students, and other education stakeholders.  Each collaborating organization brings unique strengths and expertise to a public information campaign that strategically combines grassroots organizing, research, policy development, and media advocacy.  The planned activities will help to lay the necessary foundation for a multiyear initiative that will build broad-based public support for policies that promote greater adequacy, quality, and equity in California public education.  The Collaborative will place an emphasis on mobilizing students and parents in low-income communities and communities of color, who face the worst conditions in California schools, and on providing those constituents with usable and effective educational policy analysis.

For more information about Californians for Justice, please visit the organization's website.