All students, regardless of income, race, gender, identity, religion, birthplace, or abilities, have access to high-quality, equitable, and democratically controlled public education that addresses the educational needs of the whole student and where every student thrives to reach their full potential.
OUR VISION
OUR MISSION
In striving for our vision, we’re committed to elevating student and parent voices, in collaboration with educators, school and college staff, and unions, on racial equity issues including but not limited to public higher education, high-stakes testing, school discipline policy/school policing, state takeover, inclusive ethnic studies curriculum, workers and civil rights, and the rights of all stakeholders.
We believe that to meet our mission we must both grow the movement from the ground up while supporting an active statewide coalition. Together, we’ll advance issues of racial and education justice in our schools, while moving the public narrative and discourse to support the view that high-quality public education requires collective antiracist work.
OUR CORE VALUES
These values are the foundation of who we are, what we do, and how we work together to build power:
Racial Justice
Equity
Centering and Uplifting the Global Majority, People of Color
Honesty
Community
We are committed to racial and educational justice.
OUR PATH FORWARD
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Working with a racially diverse coalition of parents, students, educators, and labor organizations, we have developed, and will continue to evaluate and evolve, a shared platform to advance equitable distribution of funding and resources to public education by fully implementing the Student Opportunity Act, allocating and spending American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to meet the needs of students who are from the most impacted communities, and passing the Fair Share Amendment.
Our work also elevates student and parent voices in collaboration with educators, school and college staff, and unions in racial equity issues, including but not limited to public higher education, high-stakes testing, school discipline policy/school policing, state takeover, inclusive ethnic studies curriculum, workers and civil rights, and the rights of all stakeholders.
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Building an authentic, racially and geographically diverse coalition that centers leadership of the communities who have been most impacted by the racism, segregation, and privatization of our public education system and allies in the education equity and racial justice movement is at the core of our work.
We organize a statewide education justice coalition while also supporting capacity building to scale up grassroots organizing efforts. Together, our partner organizations and local tables are advancing local and state education equity fights.
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Power and power building must be a community-up approach. This means that the education justice movement is led by communities directly and most affected by the problems we face, and they must be organized to lead the solutions to those problems. This means that state and local campaigns to change policies and advocacy efforts are based on the issues people face every day.
We believe that the first step forward in building a multi-racial and anti-racist movement is to center BIPOC stories and voices, in particularly parents, youth and community organizations led by BIPOC leaders.
OUR STORY
Growing the movement from the ground up and reaching statewide.
The Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance – Education Fund (MEJA) was formed in 2021 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic laid bare and exacerbated the historical inequities in our public education system caused by the oppression of people of color, immigrants and English Language Learners, people with disabilities, low-income families and families experiencing instability. Our core coalition partners of education equity advocacy groups and labor organizations were committed to advancing a racial and education justice movement and ensuring that all students have access to high-quality public education, despite ongoing and increasing racial and equity barriers. Our roadmap is a living and evolving guide for our work towards building a statewide coalition, and it keeps us rooted to our core values.
We build upon years of partnerships, advocacy, and coalition work by the Boston Truth Coalition, the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance – Public Action Network, and youth, parent, and labor organizing across Massachusetts. The recent campaign victories of the No on 2 campaign and the Student Opportunity Act occurred because powerful alliances among statewide community and labor partners brought people together to tackle the shared crises within our public education systems.
