Public Achievement
Public Achievement is a model used by people who want to organize and do public work for the common good. It is being used in schools, universities and communities across the United States and in more than a dozen countries. It was developed by the Center for Democracy and Citizenship.
Monday, Mar 24, 2008
Lessons for My Future Work in Tanzania
I am an American citizen who is very much committed to the progress of Tanzania. My family moved to that country when I was nine years old and I have come to call it home. My career goals are to assist local NGOs in eastern Africa with capacity building and with spatial planning, and as part of my Ph.D. work in geography I recently took a class at the University of Minnesota called “PA 5920 The Role of the Citizen: Organizing for a Public Life.”
Students at Ruaha Secondary School in Iringa, Tanzania
More than any other, this class has given me a new perception of how to enact change in my professional world.
First, I came away with a new conception of what it means to be a citizen – an empowering conception that moves away from thinking of service provision by the state towards recognizing the importance of individual action. This conception closely matches ideas I already had, but the class helped me to clarify and value these ideas to a greater degree.
Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008
Working Together to Support Latino Student Achievement
Chris Commers is a history teacher at Chaska High School in a suburban community southwest of Minneapolis. He has a master's degree in public affairs from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and wrote this post about a public work effort he and others are organizing in Chaska, Minnesota.
A group of community members in Chaska - Latino families, educators and other community members - is concerned with increasing student achievement among Latino students with low socio-economic status. We see citizen engagement as a key to increasing academic success while providing all participants with a greater sense of their civic power and the benefits of collaboration in strengthening our community.
We are organizing folks who see their own self-interest in working with others to accomplish the common goal of increasing student achievement. “One to one” meetings with folks who are potential collaborators allow us to communicate ideas and find leaders willing to work on our campaign. Currently, our biggest champions are lay minister Maria Koehn at Guardian Angels Catholic Church, ELL teachers such as Kristin Rodriguez, cultural liaisons like Lupe Pfaff, educators like Kathy McLain, para professionals such as Cynthia Juarez, and community members like Eddie Rodriguez - and many others!
As the result of discussions with Latino community members on Sunday afternoons following mass at Guardian Angels Church, our group has decided to focus on post-secondary educational information. At present, this is an integral part of a larger campaign to include the participation of area businesses, other Latino groups in the community, and more educators. An example would be increasing collaboration between families and teachers working to increase pre-school language literacy. Another example would be librarians in Chaska working with the school district to provide computer training so more community members use library technology and come into the Chaska library. These model activities could then be adapted and reproduced throughout the school district and beyond.
Monday, Feb 25, 2008
A Wake-up Call
The New Eersterus (Hammanskraal) community got a wake-up call several years ago in the form of community organizer and public achievement coach, Nomthandazo Skohosana. Nomthi, a small woman with a large vision, founded Vukani Community Development Organization in the Gauteng Providence of South Africa in 2001. Vukani, another word for "wake up" in a local language, was a call for citizens to actively work on issues surrounding HIV/AIDS in the new South African democracy.
Currently a Millenium Fellowship recipient at the Center for Tolerance Education in New York, Nomthi is focused on learning new approaches for promoting tolerance towards people living with HIV and AIDS and AIDS orphans. Nomthi visited Minnesota last week and the staff at the CDC was happy to host part of her visit.
Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008
"Green" civic organizers achieve success on local project to improve water quality
Jenny Morris, a transplant from Missouri and recent graduate of the University of Minnesota, was looking for ways to connect with and be more involved in her new community, and develop her skills as a leader.
Through the Citizens League, a Minnesota policy organization that aims to promote the common good, she joined a handful of other young adults to form an environmental action group. Dennis Donovan, an organizer at the Center for Democracy and Citizenship, helped connect Jenny's group with high school students at St. Bernard's school in St. Paul who are learning how to make positive change on issues they care about - like water quality - using the Public Achievement organizing model.
In an interview with Ellen Tveit, Jenny talks about her work with the team at St. Bernard's. She describes some of the challenges they faced - from identifying a clear goal to overcoming bureaucratic hurdles - and the skills they learned on the way to achieving success.
Jenny looks forward to putting her new skills to use - along with the many relationships she's built - in a professional capacity: she recently took a job at the state capitol working for a legislator who chairs an important and powerful legislative committee.
Tuesday, Feb 5, 2008
Hip hop film gets Public Achievement teams thinking and talking about race, social class and power
At InterDistrict Downtown School (IDDS) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Public Achievement is part of the ninth-grade civics curriculum. Danielle Peterson, Minnesota organizer for Public Achievement and an experienced PA coach, is working with social studies teacher Molly Keenan to co-coach two ninth-grade teams as they develop skills to be powerful, active citizens.
In this fourth interview in a series, Danielle describes a film she screened to get students thinking and talking about race and social class and power.
Friday, Feb 1, 2008
Taking inventory of the community before doing public work
At InterDistrict Downtown School (IDDS) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Public Achievement is part of the ninth-grade civics curriculum. Danielle Peterson, Minnesota organizer for Public Achievement and an experienced PA coach, is working with social studies teacher Molly Keenan to co-coach two ninth-grade teams as they develop skills to be powerful, active citizens.
In this third interview in a series, Danielle describes an exercise she uses to get students thinking about the community context in preparation for choosing the issue or problem they want to work on.
Friday, Jan 25, 2008
New Hampshire students are having an impact on local decision-making, and they're not waiting until their 18th birthdays to do it
When the chair of the local school board’s budget committee was removed for not following Robert’s Rules of Order, students at Monadnock Community Connections School (MC2) in Surry, New Hampshire, seized the opportunity to educate themselves and others about how decisions are made at the community level, with the goal of making the democratic process more transparent, understandable, and accessible.
Thursday, Jan 24, 2008
Spinning the fresh wax as part of Public Achievement
At InterDistrict Downtown School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Public Achievement is part of the ninth-grade civics curriculum. Danielle Peterson, Minnesota organizer for Public Achievement and an experienced PA coach, is working with social studies teacher Molly Keenan to co-coach two ninth-grade teams as they develop skills to be powerful, active citizens.
In this second interview in a series, Danielle describes an exercise she uses as part of the reflection process of Public Achievement.
Friday, Jan 18, 2008
Break dancers demonstrate the power of young people
It started with six young, Latino, at-risk break dancers. They came to the Longmont Youth Center every Wednesday afternoon, and met with Jennie Gershater and Brie Anderson, two graduate students from Naropa University in the nearby town of Boulder. Brie and Jennie incorporated the therapy of dancing with the young people talking about themselves, their lives, and issues they were facing, from pressure to join gangs to drug use to problems at school.
Brie and Jennie were also learning about and trying to incorporate the principles and tactics of coaching Public Achievement.
Thursday, Jan 17, 2008
Top 7 of 2007
Each time we hear from our partners and colleagues, we’re energized by your commitment and by what you can teach about doing the work of democracy. As we begin a new year, we decided to look back at our work close to home, and name some of the other things that gave us energy and taught us powerful lessons.
Voices of Hope: The Story of the Jane Addams School
At the Humphrey Center one evening in April, volunteers who looked like an impossibly diverse group of secret agents wore headsets and spoke into small microphones. They were providing simultaneous interpretation in Hmong, Somali and Spanish for many of the more than 100 people listening to authors read from their work in Voices of Hope: The Story of the Jane Addams School (another interpreter signed American Sign Language). This book launch was a celebration of the democratic work and learning of Jane Addams School participants – including new immigrants of all ages – over the past 10 years. Twelve authors contributed to the book, which was edited by Nan Kari and Nan Skelton.
Monday, Jan 7, 2008
A day on, not a day off
Two weeks from now on Monday January 21st, we will celebrate Martin Luther King Jr Day with what will be for many a day off of work or school. In 1994 Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act, designating the King Holiday as a national day of volunteer service. Instead of a day off from work or school, Congress asked Americans of all backgrounds and ages to celebrate Dr. King's legacy by turning community concerns into citizen action.
Learn more about MLK Day and how to make it a day on at http://www.mlkday.gov/
Wednesday, Jan 2, 2008
The power of young people in Tirana, Albania
In August 2006, Dennis Donovan and I were invited by the Educational Society for Malopolska (MTO) , based in Poland, to attend a meeting with over 200 Public Achievement participants from 10 countries in Eastern Europe. Young people, and school teachers and other educators, met near Tetovo, Macedonia, to share stories and lessons, build relationships, and begin creating a learning community for future work. Even if those hadn’t been the stated goals, I think they would have happened naturally because there was so much excitement about what had been achieved through Public Achievement, and so much hope for what was possible.
Ardita Korriku, a 17-year-old from Tirana, Albania, was one of many powerful young people we met (pictured below with her teacher, Genci Ago).
Thursday, Dec 6, 2007
Getting started with Public Achievement: self-interest
At InterDistrict Downtown School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Public Achievement is part of the ninth-grade civics curriculum. Danielle Peterson, Minnesota organizer for Public Achievement and an experienced PA coach, is working with social studies teacher Molly Keenan to co-coach two ninth-grade teams as they develop skills to be powerful, active citizens.
In an interview, Danielle described an exercise she uses to help students articulate their self-interest and understand the role of self-interest in doing effective public work with others.
Thursday, Nov 15, 2007
Michelle Obama talks with youth organizers in Minneapolis
Michelle Obama, wife of presidential candidate Barack Obama, visited Hope Community, a Minneapolis organization that started in 1977 as a shelter for the homeless. In response to a community ravished by a crack-cocaine epidemic in the early 1990s, Hope Community expanded their housing focus to include civic engagement.
Danielle Peterson, Minnesota organizer for Public Achievement, works with youth organizers at Hope. She said that an important part of what they do is teach young adults to think differently about the role they play in public policy and community organizing.
Read "Obama talks shop with community organizers" in the November 14 Spokesman-Recorder.
Tuesday, Oct 23, 2007
What is Public Achievement anyway?
Public Achievement was created in 1990 by Harry Boyte in partnership with the City of Saint Paul and several other key collaborators. It grew out of a series of focus groups - involving over 200 young people in a variety of settings - in which the youth were asked about problems in their schools and communities, and about their views on politics and public life. These young people were capable of listing any number of problems, but saw themselves outside of the solutions and outside of politics and public life. The meeting at which Public Achievement was founded took place on May 24, 1990, at the Martin Luther King Center in St. Paul.
Monday, Oct 15, 2007
Public Achievement in Ukraine
Check out this report from our colleagues in Eastern Europe about the recent Public Achievement Fair that was held in the Ukraine.
Young civic activists from across Ukraine meet near Kharkov
The Public Achievement in Ukraine FAIR was held in Chuguev (near Kharkov) from September 14-16, 2007. Co-organized by the Association for Sustainable Society Advancement (ASSA) from Kharkov, Ukraine and the Educational Society of Malopolska (MTO) from Nowy Sacz, Poland, this meeting brought together students, teachers, school directors, and educational authorities from the regions of Kharkov, Bakhchisaray, Zaporozhe and Ternopil and as well a guest from an NGO in Belarus and Rodger Potocki representing the sponsor (NED) from the United States.
Public Achievement (PA) is a program of active citizenship which empowers young people to make real changes in their communities by trying to solve problems which are important to them. As a result they have real impact on their societies. At this FAIR, 120 participants (representing 31 PA groups) had the opportunity to share their experiences in democracy-building in their communities, deepen their understanding of the Public Achievement program, and begin to work on cross-regional PA initiatives.
Public Achievement in New Hampshire
At an innovative New Hampshire school, teachers, students and parents used Public Achievement's birthday to celebrate and reflect on their public work.
Saturday, Oct 6, 2007
Powerful People Building Healthy Communities
A Public Work Institute, hosted by the Center for Democracy and Citizenship
Saturday, October 6, 2007
9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Minneapolis Community and Technical College
1501 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis
Map and Parking
There is no cost to register for the event, but RSVPs are requested to cdc@umn.edu by Monday, October 1. For more information, contact Kristin Farrell at 612-625-0142.
Tuesday, Sep 25, 2007
Bertelsmann Prize
In May of 2007, Public Achievement was named one of 15 finalists for the prestigious Carl Bertelsmann prize. Awarded annually since 1981 by the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Carl Bertelsmann prize is an international award that recognizes "innovative approaches and outstanding ideas that help shape and further develop democratic societies."
Although the Bertelsmann Foundation has just announced that the prize will be awarded to another initiative, the London-based Citizenship Foundation, we all have a lot of reason to celebrate, as well as to reflect and develop more our work to create democratic societies with citizens at the center of public work.
A weblog on civic engagement produced by the Center for Democracy and Citizenship
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