Arkansas State University Kelsey.banks@smail.astate.edu Stand for Children By: Kelsey Banks Arkansas State University Kelsey.banks@smail.astate.edu

About US We believe ALL children deserve an equal opportunity to succeed in life. Education is the key that unlocks the door to success. Far too many children, through no fault of their own, aren’t getting the education they need to make it in life. We are passionately committed to righting this wrong.

Mission Our mission is to ensure that all children, regardless of their background, graduate from high school prepared for, and with access to, college or career training. To make that happen, we: Educate and empower parents, teachers, and community members to demand excellent public schools. Advocate for effective local, state and national education policies and investments. Ensure the policies and funding we advocate for reach classrooms and help students. Elect courageous leaders who will stand up for our priorities.

What Stand for children does They work to ensure a better education for all children through: Family Engagement & Organizing Electoral Work Policy & Advocacy

Family engagement and organizing Through family engagement and organizing, we unite individuals with a common message, amplifying their voices for greater influence. Ways to Engage with Stand: •Our family engagement program, Stand University for Parents (Stand UP). •Educational opportunities, like workshops, community forums, and presentations When the people who are personally invested in the issues show up, speak out, and vote, that has an impact on decision-makers. Organizers educate and empower ordinary people to come together as an extraordinary force for change. •Hosting or attending house parties or other small-group gatherings •Mobilizing and taking action directly with decision-makers through: testimony, petition drives, meeting with legislators or School Board members, Lobby Days, phone banks, canvassing •Becoming an official leader or member of Stand for Children Stand's Four Key Steps to Organizing for Change: 1.Educate parents and community members on the issues 2.Build teams of members with team leaders 3.Develop leaders’ and members’ skills, knowledge, and confidence 4.Mobilize teams to take action on issues and electoral campaigns

Electoral work A large part of achieving progress in building better public schools is to ensure that the individuals in charge of education policy are making the best decisions when it comes to our children’s future. When there is an election that impacts education – from local school boards to state representatives – we have to determine whether or not to get involved. Their parent and member endorsement process helps us understand if a candidate is a leader who will stand up for what is best for kids in our education system. Not just anyone can be endorsed by Stand. They run a rigorous endorsement process that uses surveys, forums, and candidate interviews, their parents and members ask the tough questions of candidates to understand where they stand on key issues. From there decision as to who has what it takes to be an education champion is decided. Once we endorse a candidate, we want that candidate to win. To help them do so, our members and supporters to assist us with: •door knocking •phone banking •direct mail •radio ads •and other tactics Electing education champions is a key part of education advocacy. All together, we can create change.

Policy and advocacy Outside of the home and classroom, strong education policy is critical to an excellent education system. Education policies in various districts and states dictate everything from length of a school day or year to funding distribution to staffing requirements to curriculum. Since it is our mission to ensure that all children receive an excellent education, regardless of background, we advocate for policies that will benefit children the most. While our staff and supporters in various states work hard to ensure policies in their own district and state are enacted, at the national level we support six high-impact education policies. These are policies that, overall, have the largest impact for children.

Policies Policies we feel strongly about: For 20 years, we have advocated for better and equal education standards for all children by utilizing a strong three-pillared approach: Parents, Politics, and Policy. The effectiveness of this approach, coupled with organizing and empowering parents and community, has led to countless policy, legislation, election and budget wins across our eleven states. Our states have also worked independently to identify local challenges facing children, to figure out what’s working across the nation, and to advocate for effective solutions that continue to benefit millions of children today. To ensure that we continue the fight and maximize our collective impact, we developed a set of standards for how to accomplish our mission of effectively closing the achievement gap. Policies we feel strongly about: School Leadership Teacher Excellence Reading by 4th grade Quality Pre-Kindergarten College and Career Readiness Quality Schools for All

History and Impact On June 1, 1996, more than 300,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial for the first ever Stand for Children Day, the largest demonstration for children in U.S. history. Out of this amazing day, parents and community members utilized the tremendous energy to return home and fight to improve the lives of children through better education. Every day the staff, members, and supporters of Stand for Children heed the call of the great Civil Rights icon, Rosa Parks, who challenged the rally crowd by saying, “If I can sit down for justice, you can stand up for children.” Since 1999, Stand has achieved over 209 state and local victories and leveraged over $6.7 billion in education investments. The policies and investments we’ve secured are improving the lives of more than 5.6 million children. We work across 11 states to close the pervasive achievement gap and to focus on passing strong policies on the state and local level that will ensure all children, regardless of where they were born, have access to a quality public education.

Active States Arizona Colorado Illinois Indiana Louisiana Massachusetts Oklahoma Goal: to get an active Arkansas Chapter Oregon To get the other states involved Tennessee All 50 states determined to see children get the education that they deserve! Texas Washington

Why be an education advocate? Approximately 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year. Students living in poverty (51% of public school students today) are more than 13 times less likely to graduate on time. Only 25% of high school students graduate college-ready, and of those who do attend college, only 46% finish. 2 out of 3 8th graders score below proficient in reading and math and 3 out of 4 8th – 12th graders do not write proficiently. The United States is ranked 22nd for graduation rate out of industrialized nations, and is in the bottom half of those nations for proficiency in math, science, and reading.

Works cited Stand for Children Leadership Center