The authors of Community Organizing for Stronger Schools make a compelling argument that organizing can, and does, strengthen public education. This is the first analysis to document the link between community organizing and improved student educational outcomes. It also identifies effective strategies to mobilize communities, build coalitions, and collaborate with educators. In the end, this book offers a new paradigm for understanding how urban schools and the communities they serve can work together to improve education for the students who need it most. This book is a ‘must-read’ for school reformers and policy makers, indeed, for all who care about educational justice.       — Mark Warren and Karen L. Mapp, codirectors, Community Organizing and School Reform research project, Harvard Graduate School of Education

This is a welcome contribution, original and challenging. I don’t believe any previous book has shown so clearly the wide variety of ways organizing can reshape schools. Nor has any book drawn together such an impressive body of data, much of it quantitative and longitudinal, to support claims of organizing’s effectiveness. At a time when much of the national discussion proceeds as if top-down models were the only way to think about reform; this volume offers a much-needed alternative vision.       — Charles M. Payne, Frank P. Hixon Professor, School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago