Advocating for integrated schools and communities
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Dear friends,
With feelings of both sadness and excitement, I write to inform you that I will be leaving New York Appleseed in a few months and relocating to Wisconsin. Our talented Integrated Schools Project Director Nyah Berg will be serving as interim executive director beginning May 17, and I fully expect that she will take this small, but prodigiously influential organization to new heights. As our newsletter describes below, Nyah’s leadership and unusually diverse range of skills are already receiving widespread recognition.
Working in the civil rights community over the last 15 years—both at New York Appleseed and at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law—has been the greatest privilege of my life. In 2007 I had the opportunity to work under civil rights legend John Brittain to respond to the Supreme Court’s decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools vs. Seattle School District. The Court’s more reactionary justices that day believed that they were bringing a definitive end to an era of excessive focus on race in schools. But Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion left the door open—ever so slightly—for the work to continue. I knew then that I wanted to seize on that slight opening and continue moving towards the promise of Brown vs. Board of Education.
It is not an accident that Appleseed was the organization that allowed me to fulfill this dream. Since its founding nearly 30 years ago, the Appleseed network of social-justice organizations has been uniquely dedicated to taking on hard, entrenched problems that no other organization wants to touch, knowing that only by transforming our society will we achieve true fairness, equality, and justice. Appleseed centers are singularly devoted to the idea that the only advocacy that matters is the advocacy that makes real change in people’s lives. We advance justice not by ameliorating the effects of structural injustices, but by eliminating those structural injustices altogether.
As New York Appleseed advanced school integration in New York City over the last decade, we worked with many wonderful partners. The role of student and parent advocates was invaluable and well documented, but a critical group very close to the heart of the Appleseed concept is often left out of the story: administrators. I want to dedicate the balance of this message to those key individuals—often women of color—who took risks to their careers under the most difficult circumstances to advance the work of integration long before the media cared enough to provide cover.
It was school principals who led the way with the PS 133 plan and the diversity-in-admissions program; school principals who joined together to support district-wide plans in Districts 1 and 15; school principals who led efforts to end segregated G&T programs within their schools; and school principals who were tasked with implementing all of this while taking the brunt of criticism from all sides. Without principals and administrators like Jill Bloomberg, Sadye Campoamor, Brandon Cardet-Hernandez, Heather Foster-Mann, Barbara Freeman, John O'Reilly, Daniella Phillips, Laura Scott, Sandra Soto, Josh Wallack, Jeanene Worrell-Breeden, and Julie Zuckerman, there would be no school integration in New York City. We advocates must always remember that those tasked with implementing change face great challenges. As advocates, we must consult, support, and, often, challenge them—but always with respect for the delicate positions they occupy.
This was the key insight of the founders of Appleseed—that there are good people who work in government. That by working with them, by appealing to their decency, their integrity, their civic responsibility, and all the reasons they went into public service in the first place, we can transform society.
With deep gratitude,
David Tipson,
executive director
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Bringing Comprehensive Planning to NYC
New York City was the first city in the nation to have a zoning ordinance, but it is one of the very last to adopt a comprehensive planning process to guide those zoning powers. The City's current system of planning (or lack thereof) has enforced inequity across the city and entrenched disparities. Comprehensive planning, by contrast, offers a better, more rational way to approach decisions and can work to distribute investment more equitably across all communities. After years of relying on an antiquated and piecemeal approach to planning and development, City Council is finally reviewing a bill to amend the city charter and require a long-term comprehensive plan.
In collaboration with the Thriving Communities Coalition, New York Appleseed is advocating for amendments to the bill to address racial and economic segregation. In an op-ed in the Gotham Gazette, Appleseed's David Tipson and Danny Pearlstein of the Riders Alliance describe the importance of passing a comprehensive long-term planning bill for New York City and the consequences of not having an equitable and rational planning process. Read their op-ed to re-imagine how this comprehensive planning bill could transform decision-making in our city.
On February 23, Appleseed’s Lena Dalke testified alongside fellow members of the Thriving Communities Coalition at the New York City Council's Committee on Governmental Operations hearing on the new bill. Appleseed's testimony stresses the importance of addressing economic and racial segregation created by centuries of racist governmental policies. Appleseed and the Thriving Communities Coalition won't stop their advocacy until we have meaningful comprehensive planning for New York City.
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Appleseed's Nyah Berg: A Rising Star in Education Advocacy
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In February City & State Magazine rightly recognized New York Appleseed's Integrated Schools Project Director Nyah Berg as one of the most powerful education leaders in New York.
Nyah’s brilliance, discernment, hard work, courage, and effectiveness have furthered the goals of school integration in New York City and New York State in the relatively short time since she joined Appleseed in 2019, and we look forward to seeing what her relentless commitment to integration and racial equity have in store for the nation as a whole!
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Appleseed and Orrick Essay in the Fordham Urban Law Journal
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In their recent essay in the Fordham Urban Law Journal, Nyah Berg, Rene Kathawala, David Tipson and Lauren Webb make the case for a non-litigation approach to school integration drawing on successful work by Appleseed and Orrick in New York City over the last decade. They examine the complex relationship between forms of advocacy by different types of advocates, and conclude that the broadest definition of "legal advocacy" is what is needed for integration advocacy to effectively address ongoing segregation.
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Integrated Classrooms & Inclusive Enrichment Infographic
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As the fight to eliminate New York City’s segregated Gifted & Talented programs continued, Appleseed released a new infographic to inform conversations around how current G&T programs segregate students from a young age and undermine the educational experience for all children. Only heterogeneous classrooms can provide young students with the educational services and instruction they need.
Appleseed recently signed on to a letter by DOE officials calling for the complete elimination of segregated G&T programs. Read the Daily News article on the letter here.
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Presentations with New York Appleseed
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In March Nyah Berg participated in a panel discussion hosted by Manhattan Community Board 4. She discussed how structural racism is embedded in admission screens at the middle-school level and how creative and flexible groupings can be used when barriers to academic opportunities are eliminated. Listen to the whole panel discussion to hear more about the discussion with DOE personnel, parents, and advocates about the policy changes in the middle-school admissions process.
Also in March Executive Director David Tipson presented on the devastating legacy of segregation in American cities at CUNY.
Last week, Nyah presented at the Division of Early Childhood Education and Bureaucrats for Black Lives event United Against Gifted and Talented - Day of Action, where she shared research from our Integrated Classrooms, Inclusive Enrichment infographic.
Looking forward, we invite you to join us on the 67th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Ed, on May 17th at 5:30pm for In Solidarity for Integration. Register here for a discussion about the history of solidarity in the movement for school integration and the future we are building together.
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New York Appleseed is a part of a nonprofit network of 16 public interest centers in the United States and Mexico with a network office in Washington. Appleseed centers are dedicated to building a society in which opportunities are genuine, access to justice is universal and equal, and government advances the public interest. Click on the links below to explore the Appleseed network:
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