Dear Friends,
Yesterday Mayor Bill de Blasio's School Diversity Advisory Group released its
second and final report
calling for the elimination of competitive admissions to elementary- and middle-school programs as well as major changes to high-school enrollment. The report, in other words, calls out the key causes of school segregation that are fully under the mayor and chancellor's control. Such a report - released under the City's auspices - would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. It has been a very long time since a New York City mayor or chancellor has been presented with an opportunity like this to dismantle school segregation.
All of Appleseed's advocacy over eight years has built to this moment - all of the research memoranda, the meetings, the task forces, the hearings, the reports, the news articles, the op-eds, the incremental victories, the movement building.... Now our efforts must be focused like a laser on one objective: to push the mayor and chancellor to adopt the recommendations of this second report and end once and for all the official City policies that cause school segregation.
We need your help this fall. We are not asking for your donations at this moment, but your action. Call, write, email, text, post, march. Do whatever you can to get the mayor's attention. Let him know that integrated schools are critical to our city's future - to the nation's future. Let him know that this is an issue of the utmost importance to parents, students, and citizens across the city - and even outside the city. Let him know that history will judge his tenure as mayor by his courage to do what he knows to be right.
We thank you for your support allowing us to arrive at this moment. Now please join us this fall in calling on the 109th mayor of New York City to end the City's official policies of segregation.
We'll see you outside City Hall!
David Tipson,
Executive Director
