Policy & Budget Campaigns

 

Education Justice >>

Winning Quality Education for All * Ending the School to Prison Pipeline

In May 26, 2009, hundreds of Coleman parent and youth members and allies mobilized to the SF Board of Education to call for justice and equal opportunity for all students. We brought 3,000 postcards to show the incredible community support for a new “A-G” policy that now finally gives students access to the courses that they need to attend college or to get a good living wage job in our city – the ‘college track’ classes once reserved for just a few.

We believe that from Pre-K through high school, all students have the right to be prepared for college and a secure economic future. We believe that it’s wrong that 70% of Black, Latino and Pacific Islander students who graduate from SFUSD have been ineligible to apply to any CSU or UC school because SFUSD denied them the opportunity to take the “A-G” course sequence that all state colleges require. Since our 2009 “A-G For All” victory, Coleman Families have been taking action to ensure this landmark equity policy is fully implemented across the district.  Just last spring, Coleman families’ won $500,000 in city funding from Mayor Lee to restore summer school for nearly 1000 students who needed it the most. We recently launched a multi-year Restorative Justice/Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline campaign, building upon more than thirty years of leadership in the local juvenile justice arena. We are building the leadership of young people of color who have been most negatively impacted by entrenched and unfair discipline practices, and working to create just and fair schools for all.

Coleman has more than two decades of history winning improvements in the San Francisco public school system, and increasing the voice of disenfranchised student and parent stakeholders in school district decision-making.

Other victories include:

  • Providing key leadership to the Great Schools campaign that won passage of Prop H, which invests up to $60 million a year in local city funds to SF public schools, to restore core funds for arts, music, sports and a wide range of learning support services that our schools had been forced to cut after decades of post-Prop 13 state budget cuts. Additionally, Coleman has been a core stakeholder and leader in nearly every successful school funding campaign in the last three decades – from school bonds to parcel tax and progressive revenue measures that increase city investments in our under-funded schools.
  • Winning support and funding for the district’s new 9th Grade Ethnic Studies initiative, with a citywide youth coalition that included a strong Coleman ally, the Filipino Community Center and the PEP Filipino youth program.
  • Winning $1.4 million in a youth-led campaign to create school-based high school health centers. Thousands of students, in every major high school and middle schools, now receive free, confidential  services at these “Wellness Centers”, through a strong partnership with city government.
  • Increasing student and parent voice in school governance, by creating the Parent Advisory Council, winning sustained staffing for the Student Advisory Council, and training thousands of students and parents to become stronger leaders for school change.

 

Economic Justice >>

Winning Good Jobs, City Investments in Youth & Fair Revenue Policies

Wall Street crashed, launching the Great Recession and waves of foreclosures, layoffs, and budget cuts.  Struggling to stay and survive in San Francisco has become even more difficult for San Francisco families, forcing working families into poverty, thousands into homelessness and many more out of the city altogether.  While the suffering of low-income families of color has increased during this period, local banks and corporations have actually increased their wealth. Last year, San Francisco-based Wells Fargo bank netted $13 Billion in profits while hundreds of local public school teachers got layoff notices, summer school was cut and high schools can’t afford more than one counselor for every 300 students.

Each year, Coleman members lead organizing campaigns to create justice out of this suffering and inequality.  Recent victories include:

  • Saving between $3 million and $10 million in city safety net funds from threatened budget cuts each year since the Wall Street crash of 2008.
  • Helping to lead the 2010 campaign to increase the tax on the city’s wealthiest landlords, raising $45 million in new city revenue to save city services our communities depend on. Coleman members helped to write the legislation, put it on the ballot, and talked to thousands of voters about the need to fairly tax the wealthiest so we stop budget cuts to schools and youth programs.
  • Supporting our ally Chinese Progressive Association to launch a new coalition of  low-wage worker organizations.

Good Jobs Campaign: After years of successful advocacy to increase city funding to youth jobs, increase the wages of childcare workers, and fund job training programs, Coleman members are currently developing a new “good jobs” campaign to respond to the increase in unemployment among our members, and to address structural inequalities in the city’s current job-creation strategies.

Coleman Families’ Agenda for San Francisco >>

  • Winning Quality Public Schools for All
  • Increasing Education Equity from Pre-K through College
  • Creating Good Jobs for Youth & Low-Income Families
  • Expanding City Budget Funding for a Local Safety Net & Winning Fair Tax Policies
  • Building Affordable Family Housing
  • Strengthening Democratic Participation & Civic Engagement