Project Description

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On January 29, 2013, Journey For Justice held a community hearing at the Department if Education and demanded that their proposal for Sustainable School Transformation be added as the fifth option for struggling schools under the federal School Improvement Grants (SIG) program.
Through consistent pressure from organized parents, students and community school advocates, we are pleased to announce 'Victory!'
Now, the Sustainable School Community Transformation Plan is the fifth option in the federal SIG program where before it was not even a possibility. Let's Organize!!!

Join Us on May 9th 2014 – 8:30 PM ET for the Journey for Justice Alliance Webinar
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Journey for Justice Alliance Webinar – Our Children Are Not Collateral Damage

Jitu Brown
Jitu BrownJ4J Nation Director
Jitu Brown, married and father of one child, is the National Director of the Journey For Justice Alliance. Born and raised on the south side of Chicago, Jitu has organized in the Kenwood Oakland neighborhood for over 17 years bringing community voices to the table on school issues.
Deborah W. Meier
Deborah W. MeierEducation Advocate
Deborah W. Meier currently serves as the Chair of Save Our Schools Board. She taught in urban K-12 public schools for near fifty years. Deb founded public schools in East Harlem and Roxbury. She is also a Board member and Director of New Ventures at Mission Hill, on the Board of FaitrTest and Coalition of Essential Schools.
Sharon Smith
Sharon SmithPULSENJ President/CEO
Sharon Smith is the President and CEO of Parents Unified for Local School Education, a parent-led non-profit organization created to train, organize, mobilize, and inform parents about education issues and parental rights. PULSENJ brings parents into the decision making process. We empower parents in their role as advocates for their children.
Parrish Brown
Parrish BrownJ4J Student Leader
Parrish Brown is a proud African American male and the son of Denise Brown and Parrish Doral Brown Sr. Throughout his life time he is known for being very respectful and exceeding in his academics. He attends Walter H. Dyett High School and will be graduating in 2014. He works for the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization as a youth organizer.
Diamond McCullough
Diamond McCulloughJ4J Student Leader
Diamond McCullough is a seventeen year-old senior at Walter H. Dyett High School on the south side of Chicago. She is a youth leader with the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization. Diamond is also a teen youth leader in the Voices of Youth in Chicago Education Project (VOYCE).
Journey For Justice Alliance
Journey For Justice AllianceJ4J
Journey for Justice (J4J) is an alliance of grassroots community, youth, and parent-led organizations in 21 cities across the country: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Hartford, Los Angeles, Newark, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, to name a few. All of our members are base-building organizations pushing back and demanding community-driven alternatives to the privatization and dismantling of public schools systems. J4J takes action. Learn More…

The J4J Children Are Not Collateral Damage Webinar – May 9th 2014 – 8:30PM ET

Jitu Brown, National Director of J4J Alliance, Deborah Meier, Educator for near fifty years, Activist, and President of Save Our Schools Board, Chicago’s Dyett High School Students, Diamond McCullough and Parrish Brown, as well as Sharon Smith, founder and Executive Director of Parent United for Local Education (PULSENJ), Newark New Jersey, will be featured speakers.

Jitu, Sharon and each of the Dyett students, Diamond and Parrish, were present at the 2013 Department of Education, Civil Rights Division hearing. They were there and gave Secretary Duncan a Sustainable School Transformation Plan. Please join them. Listen to their stories, share your own, and never forget the master plan, as Deb Meier reminds us…

I take enormous pleasure every time I see something that I've done that cannot be wiped out.
In some way ... I guess it's a protest against mortality.
It's the curiosity that drives me.
It's making a difference in the world that prevents me from ever giving up.
~ Deborah Meier

We begin this webinar with a look at our history, the history of neighborhood schools and how vital these have been particularly in our Black communities. For African-Americans learning is a religion. It opens doors and as you likely know recent changes in education policy have closed these. Thus, we are on a mission…. A Journey for Justice. We work in Alliance.

The speakers will offer an overview of the conditions that lead to the formation of the Journey for Justice Alliance. We will discuss the need to Reclaim the Promise that is public education. The systematic betrayal of that pledge will only stand if we stay silent. Together let us speak about the issues…federal mandates, local mayoral and School Board actions that disinvest and destabilize our neighborhood schools, and also take action.

We have come face-to-face with the fact that education in America is still separate and unequal.
The privatizers have falsely occupied a space that we are now seizing.
We are the civil rights movement, not people who profit off of children.
A prerequisite to school choice is stability and equity.
That is what we are fighting for.
~Jitu Brown

A Bit of Background. School Closings are a Human Rights Issue in the United States (See Resources)

Journey for Justice Hearing. Department of Education
Journey for Justice Hearing. Philly Represented
Journey for Justice Hearing. Zakiyah Ansari – New York

Across our cities and school districts, our public schools are being shuttered. Students are displaced and families lose their lifeline; access to a quality education within the community. Sometimes, school closure is said to be based on student academic performance. Sometimes it is rationalized by under-enrollment or financial needs. But in every case—every time a neighborhood public school is closed—students’ education is disrupted. Communities are destabilized. Children and their families are emotionally jarred. This does not make for a good situation. The affects are felt nationwide.

It is essential to note that School closings do not occur in every community. Nor are these evenly distributed evenly across our districts. Some may say there is no discrimination, but we cannot escape the reality, disproportionately African American and Latino students, schools and communities are affected. It would appear that these are simultaneously neglected and selected for severe cuts in education funding.

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Join Us as We Raise Funds and Awareness and Journey For Justice!

Send Parents and Students To Rally and March for Civil Rights Justice In Washington DC. On May 13th, 2014,the Alliance will rally in front of the Supreme Court and then March to the Justice Department to present three Title 6 Civil rights lawsuits to the Department of Justice.
Donate to J4J Alliance