Note: The field of youth organizing is dynamic, with new groups emerging regularly and existing groups often forging fresh alliances, sometimes with new names. As such, this list falls short of being definitive and complete. Nor does it intend to capture the many youth groups engaged in organizing around issues other than school reform, critical issues like juvenile or environmental justice, community renewal, poverty. But for those looking for the lay of the land, this list should offer a good starting point.
Boston-area Youth Organizing Project (Boston, MA)
http://www.byop.org/
BYOP organizes high school students across the Boston metropolitan areas. With chapters in some 22 high schools from suburbs to inner city, BYOP has worked to improve student-teacher relations and clean up school facilities, as well as lobbied in the community to reopen recreational facilities and extend the hours of public transportation passes. BYOP is sponsored by City Mission Society and is partnered with Greater Boston Interfaith Organization.
Californians for Justice Education Fund
http://www.caljustice.org/
Californians for Justice is a statewide grassroots organization that works for racial justice and brings together youth and adults pushed to the margins of the political process. Its campaigns include “Improving School Health and Conditions”, “Dismantling the ‘Prison Track’”, and “Equalizing Funding and Resources”, among others. In a report, First Things First, CFJ documented the unintended negative consequences of California’s High School Exit Links to all of CFJ’s reports are available on the website. CFJ engages youth through student-led high school teams, summer leadership academies, student “know your rights” trainings, and skill building in media and policy work.
Chicago Youth United (Chicago, IL)
http://www.blockstogether.org/about/cyu.asp
Chicago Youth United, a coalition of Chicago organizations, works to change policies and fight for more resources for young people across the city. School security has been a top concern, and the group has lobbied for increased training for security guards and a system that allows students to anonymously report security concerns.
Kids First (Oakland, CA)
www.kidsfirstoakland.org
Kids First is a multiracial organization working to create opportunities for Oakland youth to become leaders in transforming their schools and community. In 1996, Kids First drafted, qualified, and successfully passed the Measure K ballot initiative, which requires the city to set-aside $72 million in additional funds for youth programs over twelve years. In 2001, it organized a citywide protest of high-stakes testing in the Oakland Unified School, demanding equitable funding based on need rather than test scores. In 2002, Kids First united with other youth groups to design and secure a two-year, two million dollar pilot program that provides free bus passes to students who qualify for the school free-lunch program and a discounted pass of $15 per month for all other students.
Make the Road by Walking (Brooklyn, NY)
http://www.maketheroad.org/
Make the Road by Walking is a not-for-profit, membership-led organization based in Bushwick, Brooklyn, composed mostly of low-income Latino and African-American residents. Its Youth Power Project encourages community youth, aged 5-19, to become leaders in their neighborhood and activists in their schools. Make the Road by Walking youth have also written and read personal commentaries for the award winning “Radio Rookies” produced by NYC public radio.
Seattle Young People's Project (Seattle, WA)
http://www.sypp.org/
SYPP encourages and supports youth-led projects for social change. Its youth members, all under 19, vote on proposed projects that other young people introduce. Once a project passes a vote of SYPP's membership, it becomes an officially sponsored "initiative." Since 1992, young people at SYPP have arranged speaking engagements, held teen forums, met with teachers, administrators and politicians, posted flyers, held phone banks, coordinated conferences, led rallies, organized press conferences and published newspapers and "zines.” Recently, SYPP planned and led five youth conferences on education reform attended by more than 450 young people; organized students and won acceptance for "Student Input Forms"- teacher evaluations - at a local, public high school; and led a youth rally to call for a multicultural curriculum in Seattle's schools.
Sound Out/Freechild Project
http://soundout.org/
A campaign from the Freechild Project—a group of youth advocates working to grow democracy through youth engagement, based in Olympia, Washington—Sound Out believes students should be leaders in efforts to change and improve their schools. It calls on schools around the country to engage students—the primary stakeholders in education—in learning, teaching, and decision-making throughout the system, and it calls on students to take up this challenge. Through a variety of online materials, Sound Out hopes to give students the knowledge, examples, and evidence they need to be responsible activists in their schools and to promote a national dialogue across youth groups organizing for education change.
Southwest Youth Collaborative (Chicago, IL)
www.swyc.org
The Southwest Youth Collaborative (SWYC) is a community-based network of youth and community development organizations working together in five diverse neighborhoods on the southwest side of Chicago. SWYC’s programs include homework assistance, SAT preparation, summer job placement, breakdancing classes, and life skills workshops, among others. Much of the activity at the Collaborative is oriented around hip hop and youth empowerment.
Students Against Testing
http://www.nomoretests.com
Students Against Testing is a nationwide network of young people who resist high stakes standardized testing and support real-life learning. The website spells out the group’s 10 reasons for opposing standardized testing and details action students and others can take. The site also offers downloadable fact sheets and flyers, order forms for free bumper stickers, and an extensive set of links to pertinent research, articles, resources, and organizations.
Youth in Action (Providence, RI)
http://www.youthinactionri.org/
Founded in 1999 by a senior at Providence’s innovative Met School, Youth in Action is a youth-driven organization aimed at empowering young people to develop and implement programs that improve the community, schools, and the lives of teens. Past campaigns have revolved around HIV education and environmental justice, as well as using the arts to express youth voice. Youth in Action’s current agenda includes youth philanthropy and school reform. Several members sit on a youth advisory committee.
Youth Making a Change/Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth (San Francisco, CA)
http://www.colemanadvocates.org
Since 1999, Coleman Advocates’ Youth Making a Change (YMAC) has waged a determined campaign to carve a decision-making role for students in the San Francisco public schools. YMAC victories include a second student delegate seat to the school board elected by the general student body, the creation of school-based health clinics in all seven of the district's major high schools, and a district policy that restricts police interaction with students on school campuses. YMAC’s annual student survey, completed by over 5,000 San Francisco high school students each year, provides a valuable window into the issues that most concern the city’s youth.
Youth Organizing Communities (California)
http://www.innercitystruggle.org
Youth Organizing Communities (YOC) is a youth-driven organization fighting for educational justice, drawing a strong connection between educational injustices and California's criminalization of youth. In calling for schools not jails, YOC organizes students around the demand that "education is a human right." Its Los Angeles chapter operates a "strike school," a four-month series of workshops at two East Los Angeles high schools about the fundamentals of community organizing, along with an annual media camp.
Youth Together (San Francisco Bay Area)
http://www.youthtogether.net/
Youth Together (YT) was formed in 1996 as a community-based response to increased inter-racial conflicts and violence in a number of San Francisco Bay Area schools. At six high schools in Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond, YT works with youth to promote multiracial justice, peace and unity—and nonviolent solutions to conflict. Over the last few years, YT has expanded its work in response to needs-assessments identifying problems and proposed solutions. At Berkeley, Castlemont and Skyline High Schools, for example, students called for a comprehensive plan to bring more resources into the school that would be housed in Student Centers on campus. YT has spearheaded One Land, One People (OLOP) school/community collaboratives in Richmond and at Castlemont and Skyline High Schools to organize and convene stakeholders within the school community to join forces around its youth-led vision for change.
Youth United for Change/Eastern Philadelphia Organizing Project (Philadelphia, PA)
http://yuc.home.mindspring.com/
YUC is a youth-led organization committed to organizing low-income teenagers through chapters in three Philadelphia high schools. The chapters provide students the opportunity to take on leadership roles and become stronger participants in the overall school community. YUC worked intensely with the principal at Kensington High School to increase the number of students prepared for college and help raise graduation rates. YUC members prepared and presented to Philadelphia’s mayor an education platform they called "Education is a right, not a privilege.” It called for free transportation to and from school for students who cannot afford the $9 weekly bus pass; more co-ops, internships and after school programs; updating books and computer access in school and community libraries; improved security measures to secure student safety to, from, and in school; class-size reductions; and increasing academic standards in neighborhood high schools.
