Communities for Public Education Reform: A Fund for Education Organizing
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.
CPER links a wide range of funders to:
- Increase the visibility of and support for effective education-organizing strategies at the local, state and national levels
- Leverage local dollars with national funds
- Engage in mutual learning and strategizing
- Facilitate collaboration among the grantees to form a more strategically connected group with a related set of messages and stories; and
- Facilitate the emergence of new voices in public discourse around public-education reform
Grantmaking
As of May 2008, CPER has invested $4.5 million in grants and technical assistance to 27education-organizing and allied organizations in Chicago, Denver, New Jersey and Philadelphia. In each site, local CPER funders leverage national funding through a match ratio of at least one local dollar to each national dollar, with a $500,000 cap.
Key donors
CPER receives national support from the Ford Foundation, Edward W. Hazen Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Marguerite Casey Foundation, Prudential Foundation, Schott Foundation for Public Education and the Surdna Foundation.
For more information about the Fund and its work, visit the CPER website.
