ORGANIZING FOR ANTI-RACIST, CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE SCHOOLS |
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"How does that saying go? 'Knowledge is power.' What happens when the knowledge is repressed? We students are deprived of the knowledge we need to comprehend why things are the way they are now. All students deserve to have discussions around race, gender discrimination and current events as they learn what it means to be a member of our democracy."
the University of Texas at Austin
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The Intercultural Development Research Association's (IDRA) has posted a gallery of student testimony against the latest Texas classroom censorship bill. During its special session, the Texas Legislature considered a proposal, Senate Bill 3, as a companion to the classroom censorship (HB 3979) measure that was passed earlier this year. Learn more and check out IDRA's resources here.
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New Toolkit for Educators from NYU's Metro Center
A new toolkit from Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative (EJ-ROC), housed at NYU’s Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools, provides materials and guidance for organizing for anti-racist, culturally responsive schools.
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Related Tools & Articles:
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What is “Critical Race Theory,” and Why it Matters to Latinos by Julissa Arce (UnidosUS Blog, Aug. 26) - "It’s telling that the first Mexican American Studies textbook proposed by the state of Texas was riddled with factual errors and, according to UnidosUS, “a ‘zero-sum’ view of race relations commonly found in the writings of white nationalist and other hate groups.”
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What Critical Race Theory is And What It Means For Teachers by Lauren Audet (Heinnemann Blog, Aug. 9) - "Educators around the nation are grappling with so-called “anti-critical race theory” laws that are cropping up around the nation. What’s going on here, and how should educators respond to this development? Civil rights law and policy expert and Heinemann author Bob Kim breaks it down..."
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First Person: Students of Color Deserve to See Themselves in Their School Curriculum by Salwa Daouk (Chalkbeat, Sept. 12) - “This issue did not just affect me; it affected everyone who wasn’t white. From the sugarcoated retelling of slavery in America to the twisted notions of American colonization quests in places such as the Philippines and Hawaii, violence targeting people of color was being whitewashed. It’s no accident; rather it’s a part of the structural racism built into the American education systems. Schools need to diversify their canon, teach history unfiltered, and raise awareness about the importance of diversity and inclusion."
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NCSD STAFF UPDATES
What We've Been Up To Recently
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Build Back Better Act Includes Assessment of Impact on School Diversity
On Sept 9th, the Committee on Education & Labor approved provisions regarding funding for school construction and rehabilitation (pgs 3 - 5) as part of the Build Back Better Act. The provisions (if the Act is fully passed and signed into law) would direct local grantees to assess the impact of school infrastructure funds on enrollment diversity, and require states to assess the impact of school infrastructure funds on “increasing student diversity and decreasing racial and socioeconomic isolation of students attending public elementary or secondary schools.”
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"Integration Through Immersion: The Possibilities of Two-Way Dual Language Programs"
If this is an issue you're interested in, we'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to Gina Chirichigno at gchirichigno@gmail.com
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SCHOOL DISCIPLINE WORKING GROUP UPDATES
This summer, NCSD staff began to facilitate dialogue with our membership about the intersections between school discipline and (de)segregation, out of the belief that school integration advocates have an important perspective to add to ongoing efforts to make school discipline practices fair and restorative.
The group has been working to develop materials and advocacy tools that help illustrate the ways in which segregation perpetuates inequitable and unjust disciplinary practices (our recent letter to the U.S. Department of Education is an early example). Some of this work is also about acknowledging historical linkages between harsh school discipline practices and desegregation, which we plan to dig deeper into at our event on Oct. 20th.
A recently-published article by NCSD member Will Stancil provides an example of how advocates might use research to draw connections between school discipline and integration. See Opinion: Desegregation Can Help Fix Racial Suspension Gap (Minnesota Reformer, Sept. 2) - "Analysis of federal civil rights data shows that Minnesota’s most intensely nonwhite-segregated schools are responsible for its highest rates of student discipline, especially for Black students. For example, in elementary schools that are up to 50% nonwhite, about one in 20 Black male students received a suspension. But in the dozens of Minnesota elementary schools where between 90 and 100% of students are not white, nearly one in five Black male students were suspended."
As we continue to engage in dialogue, we'll be sharing some of the resources NCSD members have created. Here are a few:
- Chapter One of Derek Black's book, Ending Zero Tolerance The Crisis of Absolute School Discipline (2018), describes linkages between school discipline and desegregation: "Starting in the 1970s, however, historical events began to prove false the theory of schools as benevolent parent figures acting in the best interests of students, even when they punish them. The first series of events related to school desegregation and the high rates of discipline that followed for African American students in integrated schools."
We will continue to provide updates over the coming months. If you are interested in learning more about this working group, please email Darryn Mumphery at dmumphery@prrac.org.
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ELA's HYBRID ANNUAL CONFERENCE |
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October 20-23, 2021 (SAN ANTONIO, TX) -- This year's Educational Law Association (ELA) conference will feature several panels and multiple keynote sessions addressing different areas of education law, including:
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Update on civil rights in education by Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, head of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, and the Chief of DOJ's Educational Opportunities Section, Shaheena Simons
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Annual Supreme Court Update, delivered by Mark Walsh, education law reporter for Education Week, SCOTUSblog, and the American Bar Association's ABA Journal.
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Update:
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Recently, LDF commemorated Constance Baker Motley on what would’ve been her 100th birthday: “LDF’s first female attorney, Motley wrote the original complaint in Brown v. Board of Education and pioneered the legal campaigns for several seminal school desegregation cases. She was the first Black woman to argue before the Supreme Court and went on to win nine out of ten cases.” Read more about her trailblazing and enduring legacy here.
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Update:
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Media Coverage: via NBC News A Latino Family Paved the Way for School Desegregation. It’s Still ‘Unknown’ History: "’The case [Mendez v. Winchester] is not part of the curriculum in middle schools, in high schools, colleges, or even in many law schools,’ said [Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund]. ‘It is part of the unknown, unremarked history of Latinos facing discrimination in the Southwest.’”
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Updates:
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In a new episode from the Opportunity Starts at Home podcast, the host chats with Sam Adams from the Come to Believe Foundation and The Century Foundation Sr. Fellow/Bridges Collaborative Director Stefan Lallinger: ”The way that we have set up where kids go to school in this country, which is based largely on where they live, has necessitated that educators take an interest in housing policy.”
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New Policy Brief:
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School Boundary Changes and Diversification in a Suburban School District: The Case of Howard County, Maryland: This is the first published analysis using data from the emerging Longitudinal School Attendance Boundary System (LSABS). The authors find that since 1990, high school boundary changes in Howard County have not resulted in evenly diverse schools. They recommend district leaders explicitly consider the impact of potential boundary changes on patterns of racial/economic segregation within their district, as they continue to advocate for the collection and analysis of school boundary data.
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Event (10/5):
Featuring:
- Ribbon cutting at 11 Roxbury Street, Roxbury, MA
- Walk-through of the new space
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Book signings with authors Jennifer DeLeon (Don't Ask Me Where I'm From) and Susan Eaton (The Other Boston Busing Story)
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Update:
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NestQuest's Isabel Lopez recently spoke at the Children at Risk annual conference, "The Resegregation of American Schools: The Economics of Inequity": The event honed in on the economics that encourage the legacy of school segregation to continue in the 21st century, and explored innovative ways schools can better reflect increasingly diverse student bodies. Check out the recording here.
Event (10/13):
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NestQuest Houston Information Webinar - NestQuest’s Executive Director, Isabel Lopez, will provide insight into the NestQuest program. Since NestQuest's founding in 2017, Isabel has seen over 50 families relocate to high opportunity communities using their Housing Choice Voucher.
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Updates:
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AFFH and schools: On behalf of a coalition of organizations and researchers urging closer collaboration between housing agencies and school districts in the affirmatively furthering fair housing planning process, PRRAC recently submitted a comment letter to the Departments of Housing & Urban Development and Education.
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New publication: Using Fair Housing Planning as a Tool to Address Schooling Inequities by Kara S. Finnigan, Elizabeth DeBray, Andrew J. Greenlee, Megan Haberle, & Heidi Kurniawan, (Education Law & Policy Review, September 2021) - “The [Assessment for Fair Housing] holds potential for increasing public engagement around new measures and analyses that will be crucial for bridging the gap between housing and education policy in the future.”
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Update:
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Delta Isn’t the Only Problem Schools Face this Fall by David E. Kirkland: “As we return to school, it must be okay if we allow time for healing because this time spent healing ourselves and centering equity will take us farther than pressing forward while sick."
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Updates:
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New resource: IDRA is launching the "Knowledge is Power" newsletter, a national resource for educators and advocates to help you do your work for equity and excellence in education in the midst of classroom censorship policies.
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NEWS FROM
ACROSS OUR
COUNTRY
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"White Space, Black Hood: Opportunity Hoarding and Segregation in the Age of Inequality" by Sheryll Cashin
"Transforming systems from exclusionary to inclusive, from racist to anti-racist, requires coalition and hard, never-ending work. And seeing and naming the systems that harm descendants is the first step to racial reckoning."
Curious about how government actors cultivated concentrated poverty and normalized opportunity hoarding, while creating "ghettos" and high-opportunity spaces reserved for white people? Check out this new book by Sheryll Cashin, the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law, Civil Rights and Social Justice at Georgetown University. An excerpt from chapter 6 was adapted as an article ("Opportunity Hoarding, Schools, and Racial Reckoning") in the newest issue of Poverty & Race.
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National -
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The End of "Performative School Desegregation": Reimagining the Federal Role in Dismantling Segregated Education: by Janel A. George (Rutgers Race & the Law Review, 2021) "For a short time, all three branches of the federal government collaborated in support of school desegregation with profoundly positive results. Although this collaboration was short-lived, this article asserts that it provides a blueprint for how the federal government can act to remedy school segregation. Proponents of localism and limited federal government resist this proposition. However, a strategic and proactive federal role in education--not an expanded one--holds the promise of moving beyond 'performative school desegregation' to finally eliminating separate and unequal education."
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New York
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Flashback: NCSD member IntegrateNYC joins lawsuit challenging NYC's 'gifted' programs: “'Nearly every facet of the New York City public education system operates not only to prop up, but also to affirmatively reproduce, the artificial racial hierarchies that have subordinated people of color for centuries in the United States,' the complaint reads." Read more via the New York Times.
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North Carolina -
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Student Reassignments Achieve Diversity Without Academic Adversity by Thurston Domina, Deven Carlson, James Carter III, Matthew Lenard, Andrew McEachin, & Rachel Perera (Brookings Institution, July 23) - "We believe the story of Wake County’s socioeconomic reassignments should embolden equity-oriented policymakers in Wake County and across America. By building on the WCPSS model, policymakers can realize the profound benefits of educational diversity, even in an era when courts subject racially sensitive desegregation efforts to sharp scrutiny and school-choice plans provide new opportunities for students to avoid socioeconomically diverse schools. And—contrary to widespread worries about the costs of desegregation—our analysis suggests that educational policymakers can realize these benefits while simultaneously enriching the educational experiences of reassigned students."
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CROSS-MOVEMENT RESOURCE LIST |
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Related: The newest issue of PRRAC's Poverty & Race includes a two-part piece laying out a "New Vision for Fair Housing in the Real Estate Industry" from Maria Krysan & Allison K. Bethel: "It is not sufficient to stop discriminating (though that needs to happen too) because explicit discrimination is not the only factor restricting choices and hurting our cities. The industry must work to disrupt the cycle. And that means talking about race, not hiding from it."
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African American Policy Forum (AAPF) |
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Center for Antiracist Research |
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Civil Rights Projects/Proyecto Derechos Civiles |
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Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law |
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Poverty & Race Research Action Council |
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October 18 -19: Join the Othering & Belonging Institute for their virtual 2021 Conference: Risk and Courage to Bridge: The event will be centering the notion of risk. Can those of us working towards justice take real risks to expand who belongs in our work—and in our circle of human concern more widely?
Featuring: Bayo Aykomolafe, ALOK, Judith Butler, Sarah Cromwell, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Daniel Jolley, Maria Teresa Kumar, Pat McCabe, Eboo Patel, Loretta Ross, Akaya Windwood, and many more!
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Grantmakers for Education - Celebrating 25 Years - A Vision for the Future of Learning and Justice
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Kinder Institute for Urban Research - The Kinder Institute's Urban Reads series showcases recently published works on pressing urban issues by local and national authors.
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Magnet Schools of America - Explore topics...within the framework of MSA's Five Pillars as we Navigate the Future of Magnet Together this fall!
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10/19- 10/23
Hybrid:
Virtual/San Antonio, TX
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Education Law Association - The conference features an array of panel discussions, breakout sessions, round tables, and poster sessions on a range of substantive topics as well as on the teaching, study, and practice of education law.
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Council of the Great City Schools - Under the banner “Education for Liberation,” the conference will give big-city school superintendents, board members, senior administrators, and college deans of education a forum to discuss issues and share information and best practices to improve teaching and learning.
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Color of Education - Featuring a keynote from Nikole Hannah-Jones. The summit seeks to build deeper connections across the fields of research, policy, and practice and bring together communities, educators, policymakers, experts, and other key stakeholders focused on developing action-oriented approaches for achieving racial equity in education in North Carolina.
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10/28 - 10/29
In-Person:
Newark, DE
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Critical Race Studies in Education Association - Theme: Racial Realism in Real Time: (Re)Committing to and (Re)Invigorating Our Struggle for Empowerment through Research, Activism, and Praxis.
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11/3 - 11/5
In-Person:
Tampa, Fl
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National Conference of State Legislatures - Legislatures gather in sunny Tampa, Fla. to discover a treasure trove of ideas and innovation to address the states’ most pressing issues.
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11/3 - 11/7
In-Person:
Portland, OR
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American Educational Studies Association - In search of educational liberation: revisiting the social foundations of education through the lens of revolutionary democracy, engagement, and activism.
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11/11 - 11/14
In-Person:
Columbus, OH
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University Council for Educational Administration - To engage participants in discussions about research, policy, practice, and preparation in the field of education with a specific focus on educational leadership
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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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