Everyone deserves a quality education, and ACORN is committed to helping provide one. ACORN members have been working to implement a platform to improve the quality of public schools.

In Chicago, ACORN fought to get certified teachers in every classroom. In order to curb youth related crime, our members organized an anti-violence rally in which more than 100 members participated. As a result, city officials awarded $12 million to ACORN to put toward new after-school and weekend programs.

ACORN has facilitated statewide education reform in Illinois, working with a coalition of community organizations, to create the Grow Your Own Teacher program. The program recruits teacher candidates from among paraprofessionals and active parents in hard-to-staff schools, and involves 587 teacher candidates, more than 50 percent of whom are African American and 25 percent Latino. GYOT has been approved for a third year of funding by the state legislature at $3 million.

· All across California we are making lists of where we need textbooks and school repairs so that we can get our fair share of the money going to this project. Oakland, Calif. convinced the School District to commit to six of 10 demands to retain and recruit teachers, in which three have been implemented. Los Angeles led the effort in the newly formed Movement to Reform Education.

· In Rhode Island we are working with the teachers unions (RIFT and NEARI) to get money for school construction and ultimately more funding for schools.

· In New York City we won money to get lead teachers into a group of ACORN neighborhood schools so that teachers have the support they need to do better. New York ACORN celebrated an initiative that ensures a science lab in every middle school by 2010, providing more than $400 million in funding.

· Houston voters approved an ACORN-supported $805 million bond package for Texas’ largest school district, which provides funds to build 24 new schools and renovate 134.

View elements here of what quality public schools should embody.