Philadelphia School Advocacy Project

Programs: Philadelphia school advocacy partners (psap) promotes the social welfare of residents of philadelphia by advocating for broader access to high-quality elementary and secondary education. Psap's ultimate goal is to dramatically increase the percentage of children in philadelphia who are enrolled in good schools. To realize this goal, psap advocates for policy, regulatory, and resource conditions at both the state and local level that enhance high-achieving urban schools' ability to thrive and grow. Most of psap's day-to-day work is communications-related. Psap develops policy recommendations through research and analysis and then endeavors to communicate those recommendations to key stakeholders such as publicly elected and appointed officials and to the general public. Typical communications include the publication of policy papers and reports, publication on websites and/or in email newsletters, public testimony at school-board meetings or legislative committee and panel hearings, and the submission of editorials and letters to the editor to newspapers. In many cases, psap pursues advocacy in partnership with other nonprofit institutions, and sometimes it serves as the coordinator of strategy and overlapping work streams for a coalition of institutions. This work includes coordinating public-relations efforts, leading weekly meetings, circulating campaign updates to partner organizations, commissioning research and data analysis, and managing events, including advocacy visits to the state capital, candidate forums, and rallies for stakeholders such as public-school parents. Psap works to build relationships with key legislators and legislative leaders as well as other advocacy and political organizations in an effort to advance policy ideas and instruments relating to psap's mission. Psap comments on pending legislation and engages in direct and indirect lobbying to advocate for laws that psap believes will contribute to the achievement of its primary goal. Psap works directly and with partners to mobilize parents and community organizations behind its policy priorities, with the goal of giving voice to those parents and advocates who support the creation and expansion of great schools, increased funding for public schools, increased scholarship availability for private schools, and other conditions required to support the growth and improvement of urban schools. In order to execute all of the activities of the organization, psap raises funds through private donations. The psap executive director and staff spend approximately 10 percent of their time meeting with and fostering relationships with individuals, corporations and foundations, primarily in the philadelphia region, with capacity to contribute and an interest in education policy. Only a small portion of psap's activities represent political activity. Among these is assisting with the formation and administration of a political action committee registered with the commonwealth of pennsylvania called excellent schools pa. The executive director of psap spends a portion of his overall fundraising time soliciting contributions to excellent schools pa, which in turn uses those funds to make contributions to candidates for elective office at both the city and state level. Excellent schools pa is a nonpartisan pac with an exclusive focus on advancing policies to support quality urban education.