Browse Resources by Tag
community / leadership / school reform / education reform / youth voice / social justice / engagement / innovation / teaching / democracy / curriculum / democratic education / education policy / professional development / learning / self-directed learning / public schools / youth leadership / youth engagement / public education / diversity / assessment / equitable access / collaborationBrowse Resources by topic:
Submit Resources to the Library:
Sharing & Seeking Resources
If you know a resource that others ought to know about, please submit it by logging in via Facebook. If you are seeking a type of resource or information on a certain topic, please email us and we will do our best to find what you need. Thank you!
Philadelphia Student Union
Location: Philadelphia, PA
The Philadelphia Student Union exists to build the power of young people to demand a high quality education in the Philadelphia public school system. We are a youth led organization and we make positive changes in the short term by learning how to organize to build power. We also work toward becoming life-long learners and leaders who can bring diverse groups of people together to address the problems that our communities face.
Highlights:
Vision Statement:- We have a right to decision making power in and out of our schools.
- The community has the right to control their schools.
- We have the right to learn from people who like us, who are like us, and who we trust.
- We believe schools must be based on hands on learning and real life experiences.
- Everyone has the right to an equal opportunity/education that engages us in questioning and changing the world around us.
- Students have a right to an education that liberates, not domesticates!
- We believe that the school to prison pipeline is unacceptable and must be ended.
- We have been denied a quality education and we must reclaim it.
Organizing Model:
Each of our school based chapters meets once a week in our schools, after school or sometimes during the school day. This meeting is the place we come together to build relationships, undergo a process of political education, and learn how to be organizers. At the beginning of each year we recruit new members through classroom presentations that attract students who really want to make a change. Then we will conduct surveys or do listening campaigns to help us understand what the most important problems are for the students at our school. From there we develop an organizing campaign by choosing a problem and turning it into an issue by having a clear idea of what we want, and developing a strategy to build power to make it happen. During our chapter meetings there is a mix of workshops on organizing, leadership development, and political education.
Links:
- Philadelphia Student Union - http://home.phillystudentunion.org
- Philadelphia Student Union multimedia - http://home.phillystudentunion.org/Multi-Media-||-and-other-cool-stuff.html
- Philadelphia Student Union programs - http://home.phillystudentunion.org/Campaigns-and-Actions/Organizing-Model.html
Tags for this entry:
student rights,
organizing,
public school,
philadelphia student union
Related Resources:
Annenberg Institute for School Reform
Multnomah County Commission on Children, Families, and Community