Other Publications
PRODUCING & SHARING KNOWLEDGE & IDEAS
As we approach the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and 50th anniversary of Milliken v. Bradley, what progress has been made, where have we fallen short or gotten stuck, and what is required to truly fulfill the promise of integration and educational equity? This special issue of Poverty and Race brings together a variety of perspectives––lawyers, researchers, advocates, educators, parents, and students––to reflect on both the fulfilled and unfulfilled promise of Brown and offer ideas to help chart a path forward for making truly equitable and integrated schools a reality. Each piece explores a little-known or underemphasized aspect of Brown or Milliken, ultimately providing insights and guidance about how to strengthen the modern movement for school integration.
Several recent national surveys have found support for school integration. This fact sheet, American Attitudes on School Integration: Recent Polling Results, summarizes findings from three school integration polls, conducted by The Washington Post-Ipsos, Brown’s Promise, and The Century Foundation, and offers key takeaways and sample messages on how to talk about school integration using a positive framing.
In the two decades following the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, tens of thousands of Black educators in the South and border states lost their jobs. Few scholars have studied how Brown impacted Black teachers in the North. Did they have the same experience?
NCSD’s new report begins to answer this question: “The Impact of Brown v. Board of Education on Black Teachers Outside of the South, 1934-1974,” by Zoë Burkholder, a professor of educational foundations at Montclair State University.
In tracing the complex history of Black teachers outside the South before and after 1954, Burkholder finds that, unlike those in the South, Black teachers in the North generally did not lose their jobs directly or indirectly due to Brown. The story is much more complicated.
As we continue to reflect on what is required to truly fulfill the promise of Brown, we invite you to read this timely and insightful report that offers important nuance to the conversation on the impact of the Court’s decision on Black educators.
Our latest fact sheet summarizes five legal challenges to recently-revised admissions policies used to determine which students can gain access to specialized middle and high schools. Such challenges have emerged in Philadelphia, PA (2022); Fairfax County, VA (2021); Boston, MA (2021); Montgomery County, MD (2020); and New York City, NY (2018).
The original complaints for these cases can be found below:
PHILADELPHIA, PA
Sargent, et al. v. School District of Philadelphia (2022)
PA_Sargent_ComplaintFAIRFAX COUNTY, VA
Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board (2021)
VA_TJ_ComplaintBOSTON, MA
Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence Corporation v. The School Committee of the City of Boston, et al. (2021)
MA_Boston School Comm ComplaintMONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD
Ass’n for Education Fairness v. Montgomery County Board of Education (2020)
MD_Montgomery County_ComplaintNEW YORK, NY
Christa McAuliffe Intermediate School PTO v. Bill de Blasio (2018)
NY_Christa McAuliffe_ComplaintNearly 70 years ago, the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education framed racial segregation as the cause of educational inequality. But Brown and its progeny never seriously examined the ways in which inadequate school funding is intertwined with race and segregation—and places students of color in a double bind. The country has consistently slipped backward on school segregation for the last several decades and never really got started on related problems of how we fund schools. The authors in this special issue of Poverty and Race, which was guest edited by Derek Black, highlight these interconnections, examine their effects on equal educational opportunities, and chart a path for addressing segregation and school funding in tandem.
Our latest fact sheet compiles news about four places that have been grappling with school transportation challenges and describes implications for integration, equity, and student success.
In this new NCSD fact sheet, we summarize several recent studies and reports that further underscore the importance of K-12 school integration, including:
This special issue of Poverty & Race, guest edited by Kara S. Finnigan, brings together a variety of research evidence, policy expertise, and student perspectives to the issue of school and housing segregation and the interconnections between the sectors. For years, social scientists have generated important scholarship on the topic of segregation in education and housing, but the use of this research evidence in policymaking has been limited at best. We hope that this issue will provide a snapshot of some of the important progress being made in the field today.
Just in time for the anniversary of Brown, our new brief, Which Districts Might Benefit from the Strength in Diversity Act: A Look into the Most Diverse, But Segregated, Large School Districts in the United States, provides an analysis of fourth-grade student data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to demonstrate the need and tremendous potential for the Strength in Diversity Act to help advance integration and educational equity in districts across the country. Specifically, we examined diversity and segregation in public school districts with more than 5,000 students, allowing us to identify school districts that underperform on integration in their schools, despite having a diverse district-wide student population.
In NCSD’s latest publication, Jessica Mugler and Philip Tegeler of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council advance the idea of Using CARES Act Flexibility to Address Systemic Educational Inequality and Bring Students Together.
The State of Integration 2018 is a compilation of essays by the National Coalition on School Diversity’s staff and members. It begins with an assessment of current threats to school integration. It then chronicles some of the new progress and opportunities we are seeing at state and local levels.
In “A School Integration Policy Agenda for 2019 and Beyond,” we outline 10 policy proposals that incentivize integration as the 116th Congress begins its work.
This document builds off of another document, “Crafting a Policy Agenda for 2019 and Beyond,” released in July 2018, which offered a list of strategies for consideration during federal, state, and local deliberations about how to shape our future educational systems.
These ideas are the result of a months-long process of engaging some of the integration movement’s most visionary and pragmatic leaders and thinkers, many of whom are grappling with these issues on a day-to-day basis in schools and community-based settings.
Sunil Mansukhani and James Colligan from The Raben Group facilitated this process. We are extremely grateful to our policy working group members for their time and effort:
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Derek Black, University of South Carolina School of Law*
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Nicole Dooley, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
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Matt Gonzales, NY Appleseed
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Kris Nordstrom, North Carolina Justice Center
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Will Stancil, Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at University of Minnesota Law School
*University affiliations provided for informational purposes only
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In this field report, author Jennifer Ayscue highlights Montgomery County Public Schools' efforts to improve educational outcomes for students by expanding equity and access in magnet and special academic programs to meet the needs of a changing student population.
Montgomery County Public Schools are not alone in this struggle to develop successful, diverse, equitable programs that serve all students. Many districts across the nation have experienced demographic shifts and must reexamine the ways in which educational opportunities are distributed to students along the lines of race and class, particularly in schools of choice. By taking the initiative to address these issues, Montgomery County Public Schools could serve as a model for other districts that strive to create more diverse and equitable schools.