Our newest NCSD research brief, "Accountability Systems and the Persistence of School Segregation: Research Evidence and Future Directions," looks at recent empirical research to consider what, if any, relationship exists between systems of accountability and the persistence of school segregation.

Specifically, co-authors James Noonan and NCSD member Peter Piazza attempt to answer the following questions: 

1. What does empirical evidence suggest about the relationship between contemporary accountability systems and trends in school segregation?
2. How, if at all, might accountability systems be refined in order to contribute constructively to real integration?

Some key quotes (retweets appreciated):

• "[T]he relationship between accountability and segregation is complex, defying simple explanations and solutions." Retweet
• "The impact of educational accountability on student learning outcomes should be viewed in the context of the inequitable distribution of resources afforded to schools, which long predates both the movement for integration and the movement for accountability." Retweet
• "[T]he civil rights and research communities could support racial equity in school quality measurement and accountability systems by developing robust indicators aligned with the 5Rs – or a related framework – and by providing states and districts with support on their implementation." Retweet
• "Especially given the ways that state accountability and related sanctions can maintain or exacerbate segregation, it is important to look beyond federal law to understand how states or local coalitions might use alternative forms of accountability to weaken the relationship between school measurement and school composition." Retweet

POLICY UPDATE: INTERAGENCY COLLOBORATION BETWEEN HUD/ED

NCSD MEMBER UPDATES

Tomorrow, Learn Together, Live Together (LTLT) and NCSD will host the first-ever live performance and panel discussion of Between the Lines, a play created by Epic Theatre Ensemble's youth artist-researchers. The play, which was commissioned by NCSD and the Poverty and Race Research Action Council (PRRAC), explores the connection between housing policy and segregation/inequity in schools. Following the live performance, a panel of experts will provide additional context from their legal, research, and educator perspectives. The youth performers and panelists will engage in a moderated discussion, followed by an audience Q&A period.

Panelists include:

• Matthew Di Carlo, Senior Fellow, Albert Shanker Institute
• Aderson Francois, Professor of Law; Director, Institute for Public Representation Civil Rights Law Clinic, Georgetown Law
• Meredith Morelle, Managing Director of National Programs, Kindred
• Sandra Vanderbilt, Assistant Professor of Research Methods, Graduate School of Education and Human Development, George Washington University

CROSS-MOVEMENT RESOURCES

• Join the National Housing Law Project (NHLP) on Monday, January 30 for a webinar, "Introduction to the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Obligations of PHAs." This webinar will provide an introduction to the obligation to affirmatively further fair housing for public housing agencies and discuss strategies that advocates can and have used to ensure the adoption of policies that increase housing opportunities for federally assisted tenants.

• Check out the recent brief in a series of Social Justice Funders Opportunity Briefs by The Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy at Brandeis University, "Inhabiting Change: Roles for Philanthropy in Reducing and Redressing Housing Segregation." Excerpt from the brief: "If grantmakers choose to live with segregation, they are choosing to live with the inequities segregation creates, sustains, and exacerbates."

• Metro Center's Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative (EJ-ROC) conducted a recent analysis of major curriculum publishing companies’ core reading lists and found that the content of English Language Arts curricula for elementary school students fails to reflect the diversity of public school’s student population. While Black, Indigenous, and students of color make up nearly 57 percent of public school demographics, more than half of the books they read are written by white authors and feature mainly white characters.

• The Early Childhood Research Quarterly (ECRQ) journal released a call for papers on equitable access to early care and education (ECE). This special issue aims to advance the knowledge base on policy solutions and practices that improve equitable access to affordable and high-quality ECE from both the family and provider perspectives. Manuscripts are due June 1, 2023.

National -

• The element of suspense in Supreme Court’s 2023 affirmative action ruling (Washington Post, January 16) - NCSD member Kevin Welner of the National Education Policy Center quoted: "In a society with a long and harmful history of racial discrimination that has massively impacted the distribution of resources and political power, laws and policies that are facially race-neutral will disproportionately and inequitably bestow benefits on White people."

• Opinion | What MLK’s Final Campaign Tells Us About His Legacy (Politico, January 16) -"King’s radical vision of humans of all colors working together to replace residential caste with communities of love and justice may seem quaint or naïve. But the legal imperative to 'affirmatively further fair housing' continues and, as I wrote for MLK Day last year, there are localities that work at inclusion and racial justice."

• Bans on books like 'Out of Darkness' target authors of color (NPR, January 16) - "Out of Darkness explores school segregation in 20th century Texas through a fictional love story between a young African-American boy and a Mexican-American girl. But the YA novel has been banned in a number of places and effectively pulled out of several school libraries."

• Could Black Flight Change a Model of Integration? (New York Times, January 13) - "American suburbs have long faced the issue of white families leaving as more residents of color move in. But in Shaker Heights, Ohio, Black families, upset about changes in the schools, are trickling to nearby suburbs."

• These Civil Rights Cases at the Supreme Court Could Make History This Year (Bloomberg Law, January 3) - Damon Hewitt of the Lawyers' Committee quoted: "In this time of racial reckonings and increased racial violence, we need as many avenues as possible to create opportunities for Black and Brown students. The loss of affirmative action would further divide communities and workplaces and undermine this nation’s greatest strength—the multiracial diversity of its people."

• How Colleges Can Help Close K-12 Achievement Gaps (Inside Higher Ed, December 30) - "[E]ven though today’s public schools are more diverse than they were in 1954, they remain highly segregated along racial, ethnic and socioeconomic lines. Indeed, they are more segregated today than in the late 1960s. Correlation isn’t causation, but it does seem clear that today’s de facto school segregation is a major contributor to achievement gaps."

• Opinion | Learning about racism is the first step in overcoming it (Capital Times, December 30) - "We learned about social systemic racism, the legal discrimination against Black people following Reconstruction—segregation, sharecropping, convict renting, loan sharking, voter suppression and lynching. This social discrimination continues in ways invisible to white people because of extreme segregation, yet experienced daily by Black people."

California -

• Lowell alumni move to amass $250K litigation war chest (Mission Local, January 24) - "[I]t’s notable how many of the Lowell High School alums who sprang into action in 2021, after the San Francisco Board of Education rashly moved to do away with the school’s academic-based admissions criteria, either do not live in San Francisco or do not have children in the public school system." 



• Santa Rosa school board mulls unifying 10 districts (EdSource, January 23) - "In an effort to integrate schools and possibly save money, the Santa Rosa City School board voted unanimously last week to study a plan to unify its 10 elementary, middle and high school districts into a single district."

Colorado -

• A once-segregated Denver school fights to stay integrated 50 years after historic court order (Chalkbeat Colorado, January 16) - "The Keyes case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the first desegregation case in a major city outside of the South to do so. This year marks 50 years since the high court ordered Denver to desegregate its public schools 'root and branch.' ...Keyes also set precedent with regard to intent. The Supreme Court found that the Denver school board’s actions to segregate the schools in the Park Hill neighborhood, including Stedman, showed that the entire Denver district was de facto segregated."

Louisiana -

• Ruby Bridges’ school made part of civil rights trail (Associated Press, January 12) - "The New Orleans school that was desegregated by a young Ruby Bridges in 1960 officially became a stop on the Louisiana Civil Rights Trail... Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser and others spoke of her family’s courage in the days of vehement opposition to the desegregation."

Maryland -

• Atlanta Public School Under Federal Investigation on Accusations of Segregating Black Students into Different Classrooms Maryland artist chosen to create U.S. Capitol statue of teen who fought segregation (NPR, January 5) - "Sculptor Steven Weitzman has been selected to create a statue for the U.S. Capitol of Barbara Rose Johns, who as a teenager led a student strike in Virginia that helped pave the way for the dismantling of school segregation"

Massachusetts -

• McGovern: Amherst a reparations role model, hopes work locally will push feds to create a commission (Amherst Bulletin, January 18) - "Whatever model Amherst creates for offering reparations to Black and African heritage residents could set an example for other cities and towns, states and the federal government, according to U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern...'The structural and systemic impacts of slavery in this country are undeniable,' McGovern said. 'The disproportionate number of Black people who have experienced housing discrimination, school segregation, health disparities and mass incarceration is a symptom of this legacy.'”

New York -

• NYC Chancellor David Banks talks about diversity and integration on ‘School Colors’ podcast (Chalkbeat New York, January 13) - "NYC Chancellor David Banks talks about diversity and integration on ‘School Colors’ podcast, a critically acclaimed podcast examining race, class, and power in New York City schools — creators Max Freedman and Mark Winston Griffith"

Virginia -

• Lawmakers consider expanding eligibility for state Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship (Virginia Mercury, January 13) - "Virginia lawmakers consider expanding eligibility for state Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship, a state scholarship fund for people denied a public education during Massive Resistance, when Virginia imposed a set of laws to prevent school desegregation."

Check out our field-wide calendar, which is evolving given the COVID-19 crisis.

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