JOIN US 8/2 at 7pm ET - NCSD will be hosting a screening of Epic Theatre Ensemble's new play, #BetweenTheLines, which explores connections between U.S. housing policies & educational segregation. After the performance, hear from: Reggie Jackson, Leah Rothstein, and Cara McClellan. Then, a talk-back by student actors. REGISTER TODAY. Kindly share the info via Twitter. 

UPDATES ON LEGAL CHALLENGES TO ADMISSIONS POLICIES

NCSD STAFF UPDATES

What We've Been Up to Recently

State of Integration

Several interns have been working on opening chapters for a re-release of our State of Integration report, a project we started last summer. The State of Integration documents some of the most important issues and developments in the school integration movement today. An important aspect of the report is that it is largely generated by the people closest to the work. Each chapter is, ideally, between 750-1250 words. We hope to re-release in late 2022/early 2023.

Let us know if you are interested in contributing a chapter on your local efforts by emailing gchirichigno@prrac.org.

"Between the Lines" Debuts at RESI

Two our our summer interns joined the Reimagining Education Summer Institute, held July 10-14 in New York City, to watch the debut of Epic Theatre's new play, Between the Lines, in preparation for NCSD's 8/2 screening (described above). We remain grateful for this annual opportunity to connect with educators working to become racially literate, culturally relevant, and anti-racist. 

National -

• Revealed: White House's desegregation plan spanning five administrations (Reuters, July 25) - "A previously unseen batch of legal memos written by lawyers inside the U.S. Department of Justice provides new insight into the White House’s evolving understanding of its own responsibility and power over the course of the civil rights movement."

• Apartheid by Another Name: How Zoning Regulations Perpetuate Segregation (Next City, July 4) - "The trouble is that zoning remains first and foremost a tool of racial and economic exclusion. So long as even a tiny minority of homeowners associate racial or economic homogeneity with high property values, or would prefer to keep exclusive access to jobs and high-quality public services to themselves, zoning will always function as a tool of segregation. Through regulations like large minimum lot sizes, apartment bans, or restrictions on manufactured housing, communities often weaponize zoning to keep the poor out of those neighborhoods and suburbs with the best access to jobs or highest quality schools."

• PROOF POINTS: Computer scientists create tool that can desegregate schools – and shorten bus routes (Hechinger Report, July 5) - "A team of six computer scientists and designers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Georgia Institute of Technology proved this by building a tool to optimize school zoning maps for racial integration. It uses the same sort of spatial algorithms that private companies, such as Amazon, use for figuring out the best shipping routes. In a simulation exercise across nearly 100 large school districts, the academics were able to redraw elementary school boundaries to reduce racial segregation by 12 percent while cutting almost one minute off of students’ average commuting time."

• Biden Administration Tightens Rules on Charter School Funding Program (Education Week, July 1) - "In the analysis, charter school applicants must also demonstrate that the new school wouldn’t negatively affect school desegregation efforts in the community. Applicants would have to describe steps they would take to avoid increasing racial or socioeconomic isolation in the public schools that would lose students to the charter school. Applicants that are already located in a racially or socioeconomically isolated community will still be considered for the funding as long as they aren’t creating an environment that further segregates based on race and socioeconomic status." Related: What the Biden administration’s new rules for charter schools say (Washington Post, July 5).



• The new threat to good schooling for minority Americans (Washington Post, July 10) - "Shortly after the May leak of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Tex.) wondered whether Plyler v. Doe — the landmark decision that requires states to offer public education free of charge to all children, including children of undocumented migrants — could be next." This article contains an in-depth discussion of school desegregation and educational justice cases such as Mendez v. Westminster, Delgado v. Bastrop Independent School District, Cisneros v. Corpus Christi ISD, Keyes v. School District No. 1, and Serna v. Portales Municipal Schools.  

• Fred Gray, the ‘chief counsel for the protest movement,’ to get Medal of Freedom for his civil rights work (The Conversation, July 5) - "He would go to law school, he wrote, 'determined to destroy everything segregated that I could find.' And there were plenty of segregated things to destroy: rigid segregation of housing, education and jobs, and almost no Black people were allowed to vote anywhere in Alabama."

• Alcohol use more likely among Black youths at racially segregated schools (The Conversation, July 25) - "Black youths who attend racially segregated schools are more likely to have drinking and behavior problems during childhood than Black youths in less segregated schools. This is according to a new study we conducted using national survey data from 1997 to 2014."

Alabama -

• Shelby County asks for relief from decades-old school desegregation case (Alabama.com, July 19) - "Ann Knox Averitt, a lawyer for Shelby County Schools, filed a motion Tuesday, July 19, requesting that a judge be assigned to a new case. If the motion is approved, Shelby County will join a handful of other districts to recently seek unitary status. Nearly 50 districts are still under desegregation orders in Alabama, but many of them are inactive."

• Alabama schools close as federal judge considers fate of district desegregation plan (Alabama.com, July 1) - "A few weeks ago, Chambers County was inching closer and closer to a plan to desegregate its schools. But now school leaders and community members are at a crossroads – and must wait for a federal judge to decide how to reconfigure three schools."

• Justice Department, Madison County Schools reach agreement on equal opportunities for Black students (WAFF, July 6) - The Department of Justice "reports several Madison County schools didn’t have a single Black faculty member. Alabama NAACP President Benard Simelton says he thinks diversity among school faculty is important."

Arizona -

• Court releases TUSD from desegregation oversight, nearly 50-year-old lawsuit ends (Tucson Sentinel, July 22) - "Nearly 50 years after a desegregation lawsuit began, the Tucson Unified School District has been released from oversight after successfully following court orders during a decades-long legal battle, a federal judge ruled this week...While the Mendoza and Fisher plaintiffs objected to ending court supervision, Bury's order this week granted a judgment in favor of the district."

California -

• Carpinteria Latinx Arts Project spotlights history of school segregation in Santa Barbara County (KCBXfm, July 25) - "Until 1947 California had segregated schools for Mexican American children in some agricultural parts of the state including Carpinteria. And now, on the 75th anniversary of desegregation, an organization in Carpinteria plans to create murals as a visual testimony to the students of Aliso School and the local Latinx community."

Colorado -

• Gentrification on steroids” squeezes out Latino students, raising fears of Denver school closures (Denver Post, July 3) - "Families like Rivas’ are leaving their neighborhoods, sometimes even Denver entirely, because they can no longer afford to live there, and it’s not only spurring fewer children to enroll in Denver Public Schools but changing who are in the classrooms....And as fewer students attend DPS schools, the district is finding that its classrooms are growing whiter as the percentage of Latino students drops."

Connecticut -

• Connecticut lawmakers want a closer look at inequality. Here’s why the law demands it. (Hartford Courant, June 30) - "In the new fiscal year that begins July, [the state budget is] a $24.2 billion blueprint that spells out how Connecticut will fund education, health care, public safety, economic development and many other core programs. The budget debate traditionally starts in early February when the governor proposes a spending and revenue plan. Going forward, the legislature mandated, that proposal must 'identify and remedy past and present patterns of discrimination.' It also must ensure these patterns, whether intentional or not, aren’t being reinforced or perpetuated."

• With pitch to Brookfield, effort to send 50 Danbury students to neighboring schools returns (NewsTimes, July 3) - "On June 15, the [Cooperative Educational Services] executive director, Charles Dumais, and Eric Nyquist, manager of the Open Choice program based in Bridgeport, presented to the Brookfield Board of Education as part of a pitch to send up to 50 Danbury students to five neighboring school districts including Brookfield’s."

• Hartford Open Choice Students Earn Scholarships (Patch, July 3) - “'The Hartford-based team is ecstatic to be able to continue this annual scholarship to this [year's] recipients. Congratulations to this years [recipients]. They have worked incredibly hard and we look forward to hearing about the positive impact they will make as they enter into the next stage in their lives,' said Kristina Jordan, director of school choice." The scholarships are named after Mary Carroll-Kennedy (a founding director of the interdistrict integration program in 1966), and Marjorie Little (a parent and a former employee). The Marjorie Little award recognizes the contributions of parents and employees to the program.

• Fairfield schools likely to be redistricted, superintendent says (CT Post, July 28) - "Both redistricting and a magnet school are included as possible approaches in the district’s updated racial imbalance plan. Interim Superintendent Stephen Tracy said the plan’s goal is to sustain and enhance education for all students, to recognize the growing diversity of the student population and to bring the school district into compliance with state law."

Delaware -

• Cultural reflections: Art exhibit celebrates Black educators in Wilmington before and after desegregation (Port City Daily, July 21) - “When you put students in an environment in which their humanity isn’t fully seen, there’s going to be a lot of stuff that is lost. I think that’s the part that maybe we don’t want to talk about,” Williams said. “Everything about these former institutions was supposed to affirm Black humanity, Black intelligence and Black achievement. ‘Lost In Transition’ aims to remember that.”

Illinois -

• Activists Say Proposed Near South Side High School Would Create More Segregation (Block Club Chicago, July 25) - "Some, like Sigcho-Lopez and Lugenia Burns Hope Center Executive Director Roderick Wilson, still feel that the city is using the proposed school to not only pit communities against one other, but to continue segregationist policies that have led to the city’s decline. 'I had an alderman tell me 10, 15 years ago, ‘The people who are moving to this neighborhood don’t want to go to school with your children,' Wilson said. 'That’s what they’re doing when they create new charter schools, then a new neighborhood school that eventually becomes underutilized and forced to close. But you created this crisis. It’s about moving populations and forcing people out.'"

Louisiana -

• Attorney General Argues for Dismissal of School Board Suit (Teche Today, July 18) - "Attorneys with Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry's office presented arguments to the federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeal here last Thursday seeking dismissal of the ongoing desegregation litigation facing the St. Martin School Board," in a 1960s lawsuit which was re-opened by NAACP and the U.S. Justice Department in 2015.

New Jersey -

• How a New Jersey district could be the new national model for school integration (Politico, July 26) - "Two New Jersey towns, progressive bastions in a state grappling with entrenched school segregation, have embarked on an ambitious and “intentional” program education experts say could change the way the country thinks about integration. But a change involving school busing threatens to hamstring the initiative, alienate parents and potentially impact the program’s success."

• Integration advocates consider filing federal complaint against New Jersey (Press of Atlantic City, July 21) - "A coalition campaigning against school segregation in New Jersey is now threatening to file a federal complaint against the state. Building One America and its affiliate New Jersey Coalition Against Racial Exclusion, or NJ-CARE, said in a letter dated Monday they intend to file a complaint against New Jersey with the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice."

• School integration activists call on NAACP to disinvite Murphy from convention (The Press of Atlantic City, July 8) - "Building One America and the New Jersey Coalition Against Racial Exclusion, or NJ-CARE, are circulating an open letter to NAACP leadership demanding that Gov. Phil Murphy be disinvited from the convention. The groups say Murphy, a former NAACP board member, has not taken aggressive enough steps to integrate New Jersey schools or advance racial equality in education. 'We appreciate that Governor Murphy has a history with this great organization as a past board member and major donor, but that relationship cannot be allowed to excuse or obscure his inaction toward and opposition to school desegregation,' said the letter, which was addressed to NAACP President Derrick Johnson."

New York -

• With Banks and Adams, NYC school integration advocates see an uphill fight (Chalkbeat, July 22) - "In many ways, it feels like starting all over again, said Matt Gonzales, who advocates for school diversity policies through the Integration and Innovation Initiative at New York University’s Metro Center. Advocates are building new connections as many in the previous administration have moved on, and recent elections turned over much of the City Council."

• School Colors Episode 9: 'Water Under The Bridge' (NPR, July 15) - "We set out to make sense of why a school district in the most diverse place on the planet would need a diversity plan – and why that plan went off the rails. We found ourselves returning, time and time again, to a north-south divide, not just in schools, but in housing. And given all the disparities, we asked, how do you build an education system that works for everybody?"

• Inside the yearslong fight to preserve a once-segregated New York City school (NBC News, July 19) - "Eric K. Washington has been working for more than four years to preserve Colored School No. 4, one of the few remaining school buildings created for Black children during the slavery era, and later during segregation, in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. And now, after years of work, his efforts are gaining support from others calling to preserve the historic building."

• New book by Christopher Bonastia - The Battle Nearer to Home: "Despite its image as an epicenter of progressive social policy, New York City continues to have one of the nation's most segregated school systems. Tracing the quest for integration in education from the mid-1950s to the present, The Battle Nearer to Home follows the tireless efforts by educational activists to dismantle the deep racial and socioeconomic inequalities that segregation reinforces."

Pennsylvania -

• School funding lawsuits are long, frustrating, and crucial for fighting inequality (Vox, July 11) - "A new school funding lawsuit, first filed in 2014, will soon be decided in Pennsylvania. The outcome matters not only for families in Pennsylvania but for school advocates nationwide who are trying to decide if these cases still make sense for them to pursue. While the lawsuits tend to be highly state-specific, some legal experts say that judges have signaled something of a retreat in enthusiasm for intervening in public school finance over the last decade, though there are enough counter-examples (like in Kansas and New Mexico) that it can be hard to draw firm conclusions."

South Carolina -

• The fight against school segregation began in South Carolina, long before it ended with Brown v. Board (The Conversation, May 16) - "During a pretrial hearing, federal Judge Julius Waties Waring persuaded Thurgood Marshall, the attorney handling the case on behalf of the NAACP, to argue against school segregation itself, saying, 'Bring me a frontal attack on segregation. I don’t want another separate but equal case.'"

Tennessee -

• Some Educators Are Being Priced Out of Their Own Communities (Nashville Scene, July 7) - "While no single person can dismantle gentrification and years of school segregation, folks can educate themselves on the matter and consider their actions in relation to it."

Washington, DC -

• New report by D.C. Policy Center: D.C.’s changing public school enrollment: Trends by race and grade band "While most students who attend D.C.’s public schools (DCPS and public charter) are Black, the percentage of students who are Black has declined between school years 2013-14 and 2021-22 in all grades. The largest drop — 10 percentage points — is in pre-kindergarten and high school grade bands. Across the same time, the percentage of students who are white has increased, with the most pronounced growth seen in early childhood grades: an increase of 8 percentage points. The share of students who are Latino has stayed constant across grade bands." (quote from summary)

• How schools in DC were part of a legacy of segregation (Greater Greater Washington, July 12) - "Educational inequity in the District is built on decades of formally, and informally, mandated segregation. Here’s a look at that history, which helps pave the way for future stories about the complicated and closely-knit relationship between housing, land use, and education." 



• Williams: Welcome to D.C. — Publicly Progressive, Privately Guarding Its Privilege (The 74 Million, July 12) - "Here, as in New York, Seattle, Austin, San Francisco and Oakland and so many other places, new housing construction isn’t keeping pace, so there’s a corresponding undertow displacing longstanding residents from the city. Between its persistently hot housing market and an almost universally unaffordable child care ecosystem, D.C. is muddling towards a future where an upper-middle-class income may become a prerequisite for any family trying to live — and stay — in the city. That’s D.C. in 2022: a town of goodhearted progressives strung tightly between their broadminded public philosophy on the one hand, and the increasingly taut pressures shaping families’ private lives on the other."

Othering and Belonging Institute (OBI) is looking for existing powerful visual artworks (e.g. an artwork from your archive) that focus on a hopeful vision for our collective future. Working in collaboration with Fine Acts, they hope to produce a collection of powerful visual artworks on the topic of Bridging & Belonging. Thirty (30) selected works will be published under an open-license, so that activists and nonprofits globally can use them in their work (only non-commercially).

Apply with your existing works by August 16. Find out more here.

• New report by Beyond Test Scores Project: Alternative Educational Accountability Right Now: Examples from the Field "In cities and states across the country, there is a burgeoning movement to expand how we measure student learning and school quality. Coalitions of researchers, practitioners, and activists have begun to develop more holistic and democratic alternatives. Drawing on interviews with the leadership of these efforts, this report offers a general overview of each, including background information about their structures, successes, and challenges. This report also looks across these efforts to identify responses that might collectively address shortcomings of existing measurement and accountability systems in the U.S." (quote from website)

• New from Learning for Justice: A Student’s Take on Sugar-coated History - "A dishonest education is disorienting and destructive to a student’s understanding of the real world."

• New report from National Educational Policy Center: "Grow Your Own" Programs: Examining Potential and Pitfalls for a New Generation of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Community Teachers

• New book by Rhonda Broussard (of Beloved Community): "One Good Question is based on conversations that I had with 40 educators from 11 countries about our education investments. My intense curiosity coincided with the launch of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, including a global vision for education by the year 2030."

• Belonging Podcast: "The first season of Belonging follows teachers and students from across the U.S. on a journey to confront their biases and build classrooms where students can bring their full selves." In Episode 04: Homeplace, the host "reconnects with her third grade teacher, and tells her that her classroom was the first place she felt she belonged in school."

Check out our conferences listing page, which is evolving given the COVID-19 crisis.

Please let us know of upcoming events, by emailing school-diversity@prrac.org.

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund * Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund  American Civil Liberties Union * Poverty & Race Research Action Council * Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law * Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund * Magnet Schools of America * One Nation Indivisible * Southern Poverty Law Center * Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School * Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA * Campaign for Educational Equity, Teachers College, Columbia University * University of North Carolina Center for Civil Rights * Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Ohio State University * The Othering & Belonging Institute * Education Rights Center, Howard University School of Law * Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota Law School * Education Law Center * New York Appleseed * Sheff Movement Coalition * Voluntary Interdistrict Choice Corporation * ERASE Racism * Chicago Lawyers' Committee * Empire Justice Center * IntegrateNYC * Intercultural Development Research Association * Reimagining Integration: The Diverse and Equitable Schools Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education * Institute for Social Progress at Wayne County Community College District * Center on Law in Metropolitan Equity at Rutgers Law School * Equity Assistance Center (Region II) at Touro College * IntegratedSchools.org * The Office of Transformation and Innovation at the Dallas Independent School District * Live Baltimore * Maryland Equity Project * Center for Education and Civil Rights * National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector * The Center for Diversity and Equality in Education at Rutgers University * Being Black at School * UnifiEd * The Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy * Public Advocacy for Kids * The Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools * The School Desegregation Notebook * Fair Housing Justice Center, Inc. * Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, Inc. (METCO) * Learn Together, Live Together * Beloved Community * Chicago United for Equity * Learning Policy Center * Public School Forum of North Carolina * The Bell * North Carolina Justice Center * The Bridges Collaborative at The Century Foundation * South Side Early Learning * Oneonta For Equality * NestQuest * Metis Associates