SAVE THE DATE...
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March 26 - 27, 2020 - NCSD will be hosting its National Conference on School Diversity in Washington, D.C. More details to come soon.
Looking forward to seeing you all there!
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IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO GIVE...
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We're grateful for the generosity of our community of supporters! With your help, NCSD raised $1,000 on #GivingTuesday -- an important step toward our goal of raising $10,000 by year end. There's still time to help us unlock our potential in 2020, please consider a year-end donation to NCSD.
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Send your check or money order made out to "PRRAC" to:
National Coalition on School Diversity
c/o Poverty & Race Research Action Council
740 15th Street NW, 3rd Floor
Washington, DC 20005
**make sure to write "NCSD" in the subject line of your check
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CROSS-MOVEMENT READING LIST
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Executive Summary (Network for Public Education): "The staggering amount spent on [charter] schools that have closed or never opened, as well as those that have engaged in fraud, is nothing short of a national scandal. As public dollars are diverted from public schools, the students who attend their neighborhood schools have fewer resources. It is time to put on the brakes and chart a new course."
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Abstract (Albert Shanker Research Institute): "[W]e find that segregation between suburbs is a larger contributor to total metro area segregation than segregation between the city (D.C. proper) and the suburbs. Our results illustrate the importance of between-district segregation as a factor in the overall segregation of students in the D.C. metro area. Absent the movement of students across district boundaries, there is often an 'invisible ceiling' on the potential metro areawide impact of even the most successful intra-district desegregation efforts."
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| How Online Ratings Make Good Schools Look Bad (Vox / Chalkbeat) |
Check out this
Twitter thread with key points on the report
from journalist
Matt Barnum.
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Excerpt (Chalkbeat): "
And yet, according to GreatSchools' own data, many schools serving low-income, black, and Hispanic populations are doing a good job helping students learn math and English. But those schools still face long odds of getting an above-average rating on GreatSchools - likely because their students are arriving far behind.
"The result is a ubiquitous, privately run school ratings system that is steering people toward whiter, more affluent schools."
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NEWS FROM ACROSS THE COUNTRY
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Hartford, CT
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Sheff v O'Neill (NAACP LDF)
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In
Sheff v. O'Neill (
1996), the Connecticut Supreme Court ordered the state government to immediately redress the racial isolation endemic to schools in Hartford. Despite the success of Sheff, the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative law firm, is seeking to rollback progress.
Howard County, MD: "School leaders in suburban Howard County, Md., on Thursday night adopted a controversial redistricting plan that reassigns thousands of students in hopes of relieving crowding and better integrating schools on the basis of socioeconomics." Read more via the Washington Post
New Jersey: "The failure to reach agreement on a plan to address the segregation issue apparently will leave matters up to the court, which is expected to start hearing arguments next month. Gov. Murphy, Commissioner Lamont Repollet and the Legislature may end up regretting that. It's likely the court will end up forcing them to take more dramatic steps to end segregation than if they had acted to do so on their own." - Via Asbury Park Press:
Don't Defer to Courts on School Segregation
New York City, NY
REGION II
Houston, TX:
"Should an entire district be penalized for the chronic low performance of one majority-black school in one of the city's most impoverished neighborhoods? And can Texas education officials - who were found in a federal investigation last year to have illegally denied therapy, tutoring and counseling to tens of thousands of children with disabilities - be trusted to do any better?"
Via the
New York Times
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Texas Is Taking Over Houston's Schools, Prompting Charges of Racism
Memphis, TN:
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For decades, debate over school segregation in the United States has focused on how school districts assign their students to individual schools. But it's the lines that divide school districts from each other that have a much more profound effect in separating students by race, ethnicity and class." Read more via the Washington Post.
REGION III
REGION IV
Oakland, CA:
"Albert is a Taiwanese American father of three from Oakland, CA. His parents immigrated to the United States to give him "best" education they could. As he came to terms with the school options his privilege afforded him, he found himself in crisis. How to honor his family and all they sacrificed, while also honoring the ways his faith called him to justice - called him to do something about the broken systems we live in.
"He shares his journey through a broadening definition of family, a conviction that love comes close, that kids are resilient, and that all communities have gifts to share." Listen to the
podcast from Integrated Schools.
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DEM PRES. PRIMARY ED EQUITY RESOURCES
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A lot has happened recently in the Democratic presidential contest on the issues of public education and educational equity. Here are a few items to help you catch up:
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Full video: MSNBC's Public Education Forum 2020
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- In December, groups dedicated to public education and educational equity hosted a forum, moderated by MSNBC, for the candidates in Pittsburgh. Check out these recaps from Forbes and POLITICO, as well as a Twitter thread from the School Diversity Notebook's Peter Piazza.
- The National Education Association (NEA) recently interviewed several of the candidates about their policy proposal on public education. Watch the interviews here!
- A proposal, promoted by several groups, including the Century Foundation, that would require federal preclearance of major school district boundary changes has become a hot topic. The proposal aims to prevent further socioeconomic and racial isolation of students, a troubling trend happening in several areas around the country.
- The Poverty & Race Research Action Council has also released a useful breakdown of candidates' positions on school diversity and educational equity issues.
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In Case You Missed It - 2019
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A special thanks to Peter Piazza of the School Diversity Notebook for helping us put this list of several under-appreciated gems about furthering educational equity from 2019.
- "Black Quotidian" (2019) - An amazing resource from historian and author of "Why Busing Failed," Matt Delmont. The project "explores everyday lives of African Americans in the twentieth century. Drawing on an archive of digitized African-American newspapers, Matthew F. Delmont guides readers through a wealth of primary resources that reveal how the Black press popularized African-American history and valued the lives of both famous and ordinary Black people." For example, here's how the Atlanta Daily World covered the Brown decision.
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After CECR's Brown@65 conference, several participants wrote up their presentations into short blog posts. Featuring articles from Peter Piazza, Heather Bennett, Ansley Erickson, Brandi Hinnant-Crawford, Erica Frankenberg, and Elizabeth DeBray as well as my summary of Nikole Hannah-Jones' keynote from the conference.
- "Between We and They" Podcast Series (Integrated Schools, 2019) - "Beth is a mom of two grappling with race, parenting and her own privilege in America. Looking back over the past year, we follow Beth as she learns how the choices she makes for her daughters' schooling shapes how she lives in her city... where she belongs, who she calls 'We.'"
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"Long Time Coming" Documentary (2019) -
Originally released in 2017, the movie was just added to Netflix. Looks at the first time an all-Black little league team faced an all-White team in the little league playoffs.
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Beloved Community
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The Century Foundation
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City Garden Montessori
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KOYA Leadership Partners
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Learning Policy Institute
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METCO
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NAACP LDF
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Urban Institute
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1/17/20
1/20/20
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Host: Various
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Fort Lauderdale, Fl
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1/21/20
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Host:
Kellogg Foundation
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U.S.
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| 02/01/20 |
Host: National School Board Association
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Washington, DC |
02/02/20
02/04/20 |
Host: National School Board Association
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Washington, DC |
02/04/20
02/07/20 |
Host:
National Title I Association
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Atlanta, GA |
02/13/20
02/15/20 |
Host:
American Association of School Administrators
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San Diego, CA |
02/14/20
02/16/20 |
Host:
Time to Thrive (promotes safety, inclusion and well-being for LGBTQ youth)
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Washington, DC |
02/27/20
03/01/20 |
Host:
Eastern Sociological Association
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Philadelphia, PA |
02/28/20
03/01/20 |
Host:
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
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Atlanta, GA |
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