PEN honors LAEP President Peggy Funkhouser with Crossing the River Jordan Award

Americans Seek to Support - Not Abandon - Public Schools, New PEN Poll on Community Involvement in Education Reveals WHILE DEBATES ABOUT PUBLIC EDUCATION often center on abandoning public schools, a new national poll shows that Americans want to become more, not less, involved in improving their local schools. But citizens are struggling to find ways to express a renewed, shared commitment to improve public education for more students. The poll, All for All: Strengthening Community Involvement for All Students, shows that schools cannot make the necessary improvements in raising student achievement alone and that the public is not doing all it can do to address local school needs. Only two in 10 believe individuals are doing as much as can be reasonably expected to address such local needs. The poll identifies activities the public sees as valuable in helping more students succeed. These include tutoring students and actively participating in school board elections, to more collective actions, such as school clean-up activities and community efforts to collect books and provide materials for disadvantaged students. The poll, released at the annual conference of the Public Education Network, also identifies simple steps that can be taken to improve community involvement in public schools, ranging from creating more opportunities during times when people are not at work to providing more information about school budgets and performance. The poll indicates that a majority of Americans - even those who do not have children in school - consider making sure local public schools provide a quality education a civic priority second to none. The sentiment for greater community involvement for improving public schools and the priority Americans place on school improvement is consistent across ages, income levels, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and educational attainment. "This poll is good news. Americans are clearly interested in fixing their public schools and are seeking ways to be involved. We have an opportunity to link their interest and activism to benefit our children and their public schools," said Wendy D. Puriefoy, president of the Public Education Network (PEN), the nation's largest and most experienced network of community-based organizations aimed at improving public schools, particularly those that serve the nation's disadvantaged students. "This poll, for the first time, has laid out the kinds of actions they are willing to take to make a difference for young people in their communities." PEN's annual conference has brought together more than 200 leaders of 46 local education funds that make up the national network. These local education funds (LEFs) serve more than 5.1 million students in nearly 300 school districts across 26 states and the District of Columbia and spearhead community involvement and efforts to raise standards, improve teaching, and provide more resources for poor schools and students. "The poll suggests that the next wave of school improvement must include grassroots initiatives oriented largely around the actions of individual citizens and community groups, rather than efforts by educators, government or business alone, "Puriefoy said. Education Network (PEN), the nation's largest and most experienced network of community-based organization aimed at improving public schools, particularly those that serve the nation's disadvantaged students. "This poll, for the first time, has laid out the kinds of actions they are willing to take to make a difference for young people in their communities." PEN's annual conference brought together more than 200 leaders of 46 local education funds that make up the national network. These local education funds (LEFs) serve more than 5.1 million students in nearly 300 school districts across 26 states and the District of Columbia and spearhead community involvement and efforts to raise standards, improve teaching, and provide more resources for poor schools and students. "The poll suggests that the next wave of school improvement must include grassroots initiatives oriented largely around the actions of individual citizens and community groups, rather than efforts by educators, government or business alone," Puriefoy said. Principal Findings Importance of Citizen Involvement - In the current political environment, Americans place a special emphasis on the role of individual citizens in meeting community needs, the poll reveals. Seven in 10 Americans say that getting individuals more involved in meeting community needs and solving community problems is very important compared with only about half (54 percent) who cite the need for more business involvement and about three in 10 call for more government action. School Improvement Most Important Civic Concern - The vast majority (89 percent) identifies schools that provide a quality education as a "very important" community priority, ahead of stronger efforts to fight crime and drug use (75 percent); positive, structured programs and activities for teenagers and children (73 percent); help for senior citizens (60 percent); economic development (57 percent); and lower taxes (47 percent). While parents with children in public schools are slightly more likely to list education as the most pressing community priority, all groups within the community - including senior citizens and those who have never had children in schools - consider improving public schools a top issue. Serving All Children - The PEN poll took a broader look across the entire community about the willingness of everyday citizens to be involved in the community and to help improve public schools to benefit all children, not just one's own child. Even Americans who do not have children in public schools - some 69 percent of the population - see local public schools as providing an important framework for strengthening the health and vitality of their communities, according to the poll. The Roles Citizens Want to Play - Americans identify a range of activities that they see as valuable and in which they would be most likely to participate. These include a wide variety of options, which range from simple actions of citizenship and personal involvement, such as voting in school board elections or tutoring students, to participating in collective actions, such as book drives or efforts to clean up school facilities. All are seen as valuable and all have different levels of appeal to different groups within the community. Specific Actions To Improve Schools - Americans feel that the support and involvement of individuals and community groups should focus on specific areas of school improvement, including making sure that students and teachers have the resources they need to succeed, holding schools more accountable for performance, and setting higher standards for students, teachers, and schools. Community Involvement vs. Vouchers - When asked about ways to improve local public schools, Americans identify as most effective solutions based on more community effort and more community support. In fact, solutions that focus on increasing community involvement in and knowledge about local schools are strongly preferred over those that involve either simply providing more funding or providing public funds for alternatives to public schools such as private and religious schools. The public favors bolstering community involvement (85 percent) by a more than two-to-one margin over increasing local taxes for public schools (42 percent) and introducing vouchers (38 percent). Local Education Funds: A Direct Channel for Public Involvement Local education funds are offering new avenues for the public's interest in improving public schools (see attached background on LEF success stories). These community involvement groups join business and community leaders, school officials, teachers, parents and concerned citizens in common cause to support public education. Local education funds encourage public schools to improve, convene community forums about education issues, work across sectors to design and implement new reform strategies, and channel resources for school programs. Some local education funds work with schools to provide much-needed health and social services for children, to provide professional development for teachers, and to create after-school programs to help students achieve high standards. According to the poll, the public recognizes that local education funds are needed to help provide a focal point for community involvement. Americans react positively to the concept of local education funds and express an interest in donating both time and money to an organization that might exist in their community. Local education funds have fairly widespread appeal and are seen as a good idea by both older and younger Americans, as well as by those with children in public school and those who have had a child in public school. A Collective Voice for Public Education To help serve more young people and to better focus public action, PEN is seeking to more than double the number of local education funds by the year 2002 and expand their reach to all 50 states. "Local education funds can serve as a strong bridge between the public's desire to be more involved and what schools really need to improve," Puriefoy said. In addition, PEN is developing plans to launch an individual membership advocacy organization to support high quality public education similar to individual constituency groups that protect the environment and advance civil rights. Peter D. Hart Research conducted the poll of 1,268 voters and two focus groups in October 1999. The poll included an oversample of African Americans and Hispanics. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.8 percent.