Communities for Public Education Reform (CPER)

Communities for Public Education Reform (CPER) is a partnership of local and national foundations working to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for students in low-income communities.

CPER supports the growing field of education organizing through grants and technical assistance to community organizations working to ensure that parents and students have a strong voice in shaping the policies that affect their public schools. By bringing new resources to at least four sites for a minimum of three years, CPER promotes innovation and supports systemic reforms that address educational inequities.

With $725,000 in CPER funding annually, two Chicago coalitions, comprised of nine organizations with deep experience organizing to improve public schools, will work to unite community members to help shape education policy reform efforts at the city and state level. 

The CPER initiative will strengthen and expand the work of the two coalitions: Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE), which seeks to reduce the high school drop-out rate and increase college enrollment by improving curriculum and students' college preparation; and Grow Your Own Teachers Illinois (GYO), which is pioneering new strategies for developing and supporting teachers in high-poverty schools. 

As CPER began its second year of grantmaking in May of 2008, both coalitions were in the process of producing substantial research to help shape each group's policy agenda.  GYO (www.growyourownteachers.org)  has recently completed a study on effective teacher induction and mentoring practices, which will help determine how the coalition approaches supporting new teachers.  VOYCE  (www.youtube.com/watch?v=CasvIsu48F8) youth have been engaged in a year-long process of participatory action research, the results of which will be released in September and which will outline promising interventions to improve high school curriculum and instruction.

More information on CPER is available at the Public Interest Projects website:
http://www.communitiesforpubliceducationreform.org