For Women's History Month, we're highlighting Daisy Bates, Sylvia Mendez, and Lucile Bluford.
If you are interested in collaborating on movement milestones content to uplift important people/events in our movement (including local history), please email [email protected].
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By Philip Tegeler, NCSD Steering Committee Member
Lots of news this past month!
The new Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) funding notice was released in the Federal Register, and it includes some important diversity-related provisions – a strong focus on supporting voluntary or mandatory desegregation plans, encouraging inter-district and whole school magnets, and coordination with housing and transportation agencies (including HUD’s public housing redevelopment programs).
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NCSD STAFF UPDATES
What We've Been Up To Recently
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Do School Choice Programs Contribute to the Resegregation of American Schools?
NCSD's newest research brief, authored by Casey Cobb, summarizes research about the effects of school choice programs, and their differential designs, on school diversity.
Main takeaway: "[T]he evidence shows that if school choice programs cannot or do not pay attention to social class and race, they generally increase segregation among schools. That is, racially and ethnically diverse schools become less diverse under unregulated choice plans. Parents who enjoy social and economic advantages manage to maintain those advantages, especially in unregulated school choice programs. School choice policies consistently provide an advantage to the dominant cultural group (Cobb & Irizarry, 2020)."
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NCSD Presentation at NEA Leadership Summit
NCSD Director Gina Chirichigno and member Peter Piazza (of the School Diversity Notebook) led two virtual sessions at the National Education Association's Leadership Summit on March 12. The session was named "Beyond the Rhetoric of Restorative Justice: Using Data to Strengthen Safety & Belonging."
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NCSD Working Group: Assessment/Accountability
Over the next few months, Peter Piazza (of the School Diversity Notebook is leading an NCSD working group on assessment and accountability.
Interested in learning more and/or plugging into this working group? Email Peter at [email protected].
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CALL FOR PEER REVIEWERS (MSAP) |
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The Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) is seeking peer reviewers from various professions and backgrounds to independently read, score, and provide timely, well-written comments on MSAP grant applications submitted for consideration in the FY 2022 MSAP Competition.
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PROPOSED CHARTER SCHOOL FUNDING PRIORITIES (COMMENTS DUE 4/13) |
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- a priority for better coordination between charter schools and public school districts
- a priority for diverse charters
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a required “community impact analysis” to ensure that funded charter schools would not “negatively affect any desegregation efforts in the public school districts from which students are, or would be, drawn,” and “would not otherwise increase racial or socioeconomic segregation or isolation in the schools from which the students are, or would be, drawn.”
We encourage members to weigh in. Comments are due by April 13.
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Trainings Available:
All trainings take place on Wednesdays at 7 PM EST / 4 PM PST starting on April 13th (and running through July).
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Updates:
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New blog post: Rethinking the Two-Tour Pledge is Exposure Enough - “Our movement toward anti-racist school integration isn’t just about making a different choice, although that is an essential step, it’s about interrupting the disturbing trend of White and otherwise privileged families concentrating resources in a small number of schools."
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Updates:
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OBI director john a. powell was interviewed for a CBS Sunday morning show on the issue of free speech and censorship. Check it out here.
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Updates:
On the ground update:
Resource kit:
*The Integration Coalition was created to bring together organizational leaders across the city that advocate for integration to strengthen our messaging and advocacy through collective work. At present, Integration Coalition meetings are consistently attended by 5 organizations: IntegrateNYC (student-led), The Alliance for School Integration and Desegregation, Teens Take Charge (student-led), The Coalition for Asian American Children and Families, and the Integration and Innovation Initiative out of the NYU Metro Center.
If you are interested in learning more about, or getting involved in, integration efforts in NYC, contact Nyah Berg at [email protected].
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Updates:
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IDRA Launches ‘Southern Education Equity Network’ to Support Family & Community Advocates - As small but loud factions attack public education, students and families across the U.S. South are pushing back. IDRA’s new Southern Education Equity Network (SEEN) trains and assists communities in improving education policy and practice across the South and provides an online and mobile space for community members and coalitions to coordinate their advocacy.
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IDRA Summer 2022 Internship Program: Learn more here and apply! The deadline is April 8th.
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Update:
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The Center for Education and Civil Rights (CECR) at Pennsylvania State University has compiled a list of resources to assist early childhood and K-12 educators in talking about race and racism in the classroom. It starts with overarching resources that we think could be useful across the age spectrum, followed by resources organized loosely by age (early childhood, elementary, middle/high school). Included in this list are links to relevant CECR research and past events, as well as resources by other organizations whose work has proven valuable to us. We invite your contributions!
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Update:
March 24th marked the 56th anniversary of METCO, an interdistrict integration program which connects 37 communities and enrolls over 3,200 students in Massachusetts.
In celebration of its birthday, you can support METCO in two ways:
Call your legislator in support of METCO’s state funding. Every year, we have to advocate to our state representatives and senators on Beacon Hill for METCO to receive its annual funding to continue to operate in every town. Let them know it matters to you!
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RESEARCH ADVISORY PANEL UPDATES
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NCSD RAP Member Rucker Johnson received coverage in Chalkbeat, Closing Arguments in Pennsylvania School Funding Case Set for Thursday: “One witness for the plaintiffs, economist Rucker Johnson of the University of California, presented a study of states where similar school funding lawsuits were successful and resulted in year-over-year increases in per-pupil spending. For people in those states from low-income backgrounds, this study found, there were improvements on such measures as high school graduation, family income, and incarceration rates.”
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INDIVIDUAL MEMBER UPDATES
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NCSD member Janel George was quoted in a CNN article about classroom censorship: “What we're witnessing now in terms of legislative restrictions following on the heels of racial progress is not new. Our country has experienced these kinds of legislative restrictions before -- including after Reconstruction with the imposition of Jim Crow laws designed to maintain the racial subordination of emancipated Black people.”
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Tune in virtually: On March 31, UCONN School of Law will celebrate NCSD member John Brittain and reflect on his many significant achievements as a faculty member, including the landmark 1996 Connecticut Supreme Court decision in Sheff v. O’Neill that successfully challenged the segregation of Hartford-area public schools. Speakers include: Elizabeth Horton Sheff, Lead Plaintiff; Martha Stone, Center for Children’s Advocacy; Philip Tegeler, Poverty & Race Research Action Council; Derek Black, University of South Carolina School of Law; and Richard Kahlenberg, The Century Foundation. (This is a hybrid event w/limited in-person seating capacity.)
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NEWS FROM ACROSS OUR COUNTRY |
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Connecticut -
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Related: Has Connecticut Finally Arrived at a Solution for Hartford Schools? (Connecticut Mirror, February 1) - "The results of these various settlements have consistently fallen short of providing Hartford students with equal educational opportunities, but [Plaintiff’s Counsel, Martha Stone, Center for Children’s Advocacy] said that unlike in previous settlements, in this case there is a concrete plan with funding attached. 'Not only is the state agreeable to meet the demand, but it’s being backed up by a concrete plan and some funding to implement the plan,' she said. 'If they do not meet the demand we can go back to court at any time.'"
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District of Columbia -
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Caught in a Culture War, Georgetown Day School Holds Fast to Its Mission by Erica L. Green (New York Times, March 24) - "[W]hat resonated most among members of the Georgetown Day community was [Judge Ketanji Jackson's] description of the school’s 'special history,' citing the Jewish and Black families who banded together to create the institution in 1945 because their children could not attend public schools together."
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Massachusetts -
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The Only Way to Fix Boston Schools Once and for All by David Scharfenberg (Boston Globe, March 18) - "Martha Stone, a lawyer who has worked on Sheff from the start, says states like Massachusetts — with constitutional provisions guaranteeing both a quality education and equal protection under the law — are ripe for similar litigation. Advocates may have to spend years in the courts. But it’s worth it, she suggests, if it means deploying one of the most powerful — and underutilized — strategies for fixing failing schools. Integration 'absolutely needs to be pushed as one of the remedies,' Stone says. 'I mean, look at the results of some of the other initiatives — they haven’t worked.'"
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Michigan -
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School Segregation Reduces Life Expectancy in the U.S. Black Population by 9 Years by Robert A. Hahn (Health Equity, 2022) - "This study indicates the causal link between school segregation and high school graduation and the association of graduation and life expectancy. It estimates the reduction in life expectancy associated with school segregation and characterizes the prevalence of school segregation of black students in states. Lack of high school completion is associated with a reduction in life expectancy of 9 years—similar to that of smoking. The prevalence of black school segregation ( > 50% minority) is greatest in the Northeast (81.1%), next highest in the South (78.1), next in the Midwest (68.4%), and lowest in the West (13.6%). Known remedies to school segregation must be implemented to eliminate this root of health inequity."
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New Jersey -
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N.J. Defends ‘Segregated’ School System in Court. Will its Case Hold Up? by Adam Clark (NJ Advance Media, March 3) - "The plaintiffs are asking [Judge] Lougy for a summary judgment that de facto segregation exists in New Jersey schools. That ruling would then allow both sides to work together on a remedy, said former state Supreme Court Justice Gary Stein, who helped spearhead the legal challenge."
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Related: Court Weighs Potentially Landmark NJ School Segregation Case by Karen Yi (Gothamist, March 3) - “'The big reason why we are where we are is because we have very significant segregation in housing,' said [NCSD member] Elise Boddie, professor of law at Rutgers Law School and founder of The Inclusion Project at Rutgers. 'Because we have a state law that more or less requires students to attend school where they live, those systems of residential segregation carry into our school system.'”
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CROSS-MOVEMENT RESOURCE LIST |
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Why Teachers Are Afraid to Teach History by Rachel Cohen (The New Republic, March 28) - "In the end, as communities continue to spar, it will be students who pay the price for the laws, rules, and cultural pressures that deter educators from tackling so-called divisive subjects. A wealth of research, from both nationally representative samples of schools and individual schools, has shown that students who are encouraged to discuss controversial issues are more likely to develop civic tolerance, political interests, a sense of civic duty, and expectations of voting than their peers without similar classroom experiences."
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School Closures Intensify Gentrification in Black Neighborhoods Nationwide, Stanford Study Finds by Carrie Spector (Stanford Graduate School of Education, March 28) - "The closure of Black schools increased the residential desirability of surrounding neighborhoods in a way that wasn’t observed in other community types: When school closures happened in white and Latinx communities, the researchers found little evidence of property values rising or more affluent households moving in. In other words, said Pearman, 'school closures help jump-start the gentrification process, but only in Black neighborhoods.'"
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What do you think about school dress codes?
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent, nonpartisan agency of Congress, has been asked to study dress code policies and the enforcement of these policies in public schools. To help it better understand the impact dress codes can have on students and families, the GAO is asking for volunteers to fill out a short questionnaire if they:
- Have one or more children currently enrolled in a public school with a dress code or uniform policy; or
- Had a child or children enrolled in a public school with a dress code or uniform policy as recently as the 2019-20 school year?
The questionnaire should take less than 10 minutes to complete. The deadline is April 15, 2022.
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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation |
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Empowered Parents in Community (EPiC) |
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Howard University, Center for Journalism & Democracy |
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Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) |
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Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law |
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Open Communities Alliance |
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Othering & Belonging Institute |
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National School Board Association - The event that brings together education leaders to learn about the best governance practices, gain insight into child development and learn about new programs and technology that can help enrich student learning.
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American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law - The event is designed to train, engage, and provide opportunities for networking and dialogue among child welfare professionals.
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4/18 - 4/22
Clark County, NV
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Magnet Schools of America - More than a thousand magnet school teachers, principals, and administrators from across the country participate in MSA’s annual meeting. It features outstanding keynote speakers and sessions focusing on best practices in curriculum and instruction, technology integration, school leadership, and magnet school design.
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4/21 - 4/26
Hybrid: San Diego, CA
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American Educational Research Association - The theme is "Cultivating Equitable Education Systems for the 21st Century." Held in collaboration with the World Education Research Association 2022 Focal Meeting. The 2022 Annual Meeting is a dual-component conference with sessions offered on-site in San Diego, CA, and other sessions offered on a virtual platform.
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4/22 - 4/24
St. Louis, MO
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American Federation of Teachers - There will be a wide range of paraprofessionals and school-related personnel
development workshops to help strengthen our union, develop leadership skills and equip workers with new tools to help activists advocate for our professions.
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Contact Us
National Coalition on School Diversity
c/o Poverty and Race Research Action Council
Mailing Address: 740 15th St. NW #300
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202-544-5066
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