PURE News

PURE has just been awarded a $3,000 grant from RESIST, Inc, a national progressive foundation located in Somerville, MA.

RESIST began in 1967 in support of draft resistance and in opposition to the Vietnam War. As the funder of first resort for hundreds of organizations, RESIST's small but timely grants and loans are made to grassroots groups engaged in activist organizing and educational work for social change. RESIST defines organizing as collective action to challenge the status quo, demand changes in policy and practice, and educate communities about root causes and just solutions. RESIST recognizes that there are a variety of stages and strategies that lead to community organizing. Therefore, they support strategies that build community, encourage collaborations with other organizations, increase skills and/or access to resources, and produce leadership from the constituency being most directly affected. In fiscal year 2008, RESIST gave over $265,000 to 138 organizations across the country.

"Each year, RESIST funds groups like PURE, because our mission is to support people who take a stand about the issues that matter today, whether it's to resist corporate globalization, promote a woman's right to choose, or develop activist leaders,” says Board Chair Kay Mathew. “And we believe it's especially important to help grassroots organizations that might be too small or too local – or too radical – for mainstream foundations.”

RESIST Contact: Robin Carton, Grants Manager

RESIST, Inc.

259 Elm Street

Somerville, MA 02144

617/623-5110 or robinc@resistinc.org; www.resistinc.org

** Press release **

For immediate release

March 24, 2009

Parent group files FOIA complaint with Illinois Attorney General

CPS failed to provide required reports about impact of school closings on children

Contact: Julie Woestehoff, PURE executive director, 312-491-9101

Chicago, March 24, 2009: Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE) filed a complaint with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan today charging that the Chicago Public Schools has denied PURE's request for copies of reports required under the 2007 CPS school closing policy.

Section V of the CPS policy states, "The CEO shall review the school closing process annually and report to the Board on the impact school closures have on CPS students. The report shall be made publicly available."

PURE initially requested copies of these reports under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on January 6, 2009. CPS immediately filed for an extension, but has since failed to respond to the request.

PURE's letter to Attorney General Madigan states, "The policy itself requires public disclosure of the reports, and disclosure is clearly in the public interest. We know that students who are moved from school to school can lose academic ground. There may also be emotional and social repercussions from such moves. We need to know what has been happening to our children, some of whom have been subjected to multiple school moves under Mayor Daley's Renaissance 2010 program. Parents, the general public, and the Board itself should have objective information about how school closings have affected children. This is especially pertinent in light of the Board's vote last month to close another eight schools.

“If these reports do not exist, the public has a right to know that the Board of Education is making decisions without having any information about the impact those decisions have on children, information that they themselves requested.”

According to PURE executive director Julie Woestehoff, “If Board members don't know how their school closure decisions have been affecting children, they should stop approving these proposals. In fact, if they didn't care enough about children to insist on having this information before they voted to close more schools last month, they should resign before they make one more irresponsible decision. This is yet another reason why Chicago needs an elected school board."

PURE letter to Attorney General

CPS school closing policy

We thank the following people who are our nominees for the 2009 PURE Board of Directors:

• Steven Ross
• Cathy Dale
• Antonia Salinas
• Catherine Ferree
• Elaine Siegel
• Ismael Vargas
• Ismael Vargas, Jr.
• Rebecca Williams
• Cynthia Smith
• Johnny O. Holmes

The election will take place at the PURE Annual Meeting, Monday, November 17, 2008 at 6:30 pm.

 

 

UPDATE! Links to prices and formats below have been corrected- sorry for the inconvenience! 

We are looking for advertisers for our 20th anniversary celebration program book. The event takes place on Dec. 3, 2007, and the deadline to place ads is Nov. 23.

Here are the price list and instructions for placing an ad.

Here are the formats/sizes.

You can pay by mail or use the Donate Now! button on the upper left corner of our web site. 

Ads can say whatever you want, but we are especially looking for ads that recognize PURE's 20 years as well as the school reform and LSC support efforts of our guest speaker, City Clerk Miguel DelValle, and our ELSIE Awardee, Senator Kimberly Lightford.   

Here's the sponsor card for PURE's 20th anniversary event. The names of all who submit and pay a sponsorship by October 19 will be listed on the invitation and in the program.

Please print this card and mail it with your payment to PURE, 100 S. Morgan Street, Chicago, IL 60607.

Or, save 41 cents and use the Donate Now! button on the upper left hand corner of our web site to submit your donation.

Thanks for giving PURE a great head start on our next 20 years !!!

PURE’s Julie Woestehoff was a guest on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation on January 8, 2007, the first Talk of the Nation program heard in Chicago for several years.

If you didn’t catch the program live, you can listen via the internet: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6743681

The topic of the show was school reform and mayoral control. Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan was the first guest. He spoke very highly of the improvements in CPS since Mayor Daley took over in 1995. Just before host Neal Conan brought Julie on, he took a call from a Florida parent who was concerned that parents would lose their voice with mayoral control of the schools. Not only was this a great opening for Julie, but Neal first asked Arne Duncan to respond. Duncan had to talk about Chicago’s Local School Councils and how important they are for parent input.

Julie agreed with him, of course, and talked about the research showing the strong positive gains in schools with LSCs. But she also said that, unfortunately, the mayor's plan dismantles LSCs, so parents are right to be concerned.

Another highlight of the program was the opportunity Neal Conan gave Julie to advise the new mayor of Washington D.C., who was the third guest and who is proposing to take over D.C. schools. Julie and PURE’s Wanda Hopkins had just been in D.C. at the invitation of a parent group to talk about the pros and cons of mayoral take over, so Julie was able to refer to the concerns of D.C. parents and to strongly recommend that he put in place a structure for real parent input, not just perfunctory advisory bodies.

It’s also great to have a link to PURE on the NPR web site! 

The Ford Foundation today announced that Johnny O. Holmes, Wanda Hopkins, Ismael Vargas and Julie Woestehoff of Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE), in Chicago, are winners of a 2003 Leadership for a Changing World award.

The PURE leadership team is one of 17 awardees, selected from a pool of more than 1,300 nominations, representing individuals and leadership teams that are tackling some of the nation's most entrenched social problems.

PURE will receive $100,000 to advance its work and an additional $15,000 for supporting activities over the next two years. The program also includes a major, multi-year collaborative research initiative that works with awardees to explore how leadership is created and sustained.

"These awards recognize the achievement of remarkable people working to bring positive social change to their communities and beyond," said Susan V. Berresford, president of the Ford Foundation. "In celebrating their accomplishments we also seek to illuminate the particular characteristics of effective social justice leadership, which the LCW's collaborative research with awardees is beginning to identify."

Launched in September 2000, Leadership for a Changing World is a program of the Ford Foundation in partnership with the Advocacy Institute in Washington, D.C. and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. The 2003 awardees join 40 previous recipients. (from Ford Foundation press release).

For more about the program and PURE, visit www.leadershipforchange.org.

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Check out PURE's executive director, Julie Woestehoff, on the NBC TODAY Show!

PURE's Executive Director, Julie Woestehoff, was a recent guest on the NBC TODAY Show. She flew to New York to appear on February 10. The topic was Parent Report Cards. Julie pointed out that a parent report card program in Chicago was a disaster. She recommends more two-way communication between the home and school.

PURE has a tip sheet on a useful idea, the home-school journal, which is an inexpensive but effective way for schools and families to share good news, concerns, and ideas for helping our students. Look in the tip sheet section of our web site.

 

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