On October 17th & 18th, 2016, the the National Coalition on School Diversity (NCSD) hosted School Diversity in Action: Strategies for Increasing School Diversity and Fostering Equitable School Environments with the U.S. Department of Education (ED), The Century Foundation (TCF). More info here. See the agenda.
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School Diversity: An Answer to Racial and Economic Segregation Please join us for a briefing about the importance of school diversity, which benefits not just our children, but our society as a whole. Students who attend racially and socioeconomically diverse schools are more likely to achieve higher test scores and better grades, to graduate from high school and to attend and graduate from college. School diversity has been shown to improve workplace readiness, and therefore benefits everyone in today’s global economy. Hear about what the federal government, states, and local school districts are doing to combat racial isolation and what more still needs to be done. Remarks by:
Keynote Speaker:
Panelists:
If you have any additional questions, please contact James Colligan at jcolligan@rabengroup.com or 202-466-8585 National Coalition on School Diversity Urges Policies to Mitigate Racial and Socioeconomic Segregation in Schools Confirmed by GAO Report Opinion: Brown decision’s legacy should include white children Can Charlotte-Mecklenburg Desegregate Its Schools … Again? NCSD’s research briefs are cited in this article: “Proponents of desegregating Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools point to a significant body of research that says diverse schools provide better social and academic education for all children.” Washington, DC-The National Coalition on School Diversity (www.school-diversity.org) applauds Acting U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. for taking steps to address economic and racial isolation in American schools. Read the press release here. Contact: Philip Tegeler Acting Education Secretary Champions Economic, Racial Integration “Indeed, the National Coalition on School Diversity on January 21 wrote the Education Department to encourage racial and socioeconomic integration under the sweeping new education law known as the Every Student Succeeds Act. Duncan instead favored plans to bring in charter school operators or fire teachers. Duncan defended this approach, writing that as the head of schools in Chicago, ‘we moved the adults out of the building, kept the children there, and brought in new adults.’ This rankled many educators. At a 2009 conference of the National Coalition on School Diversity, Louisville, Kentucky, public school administrator Pat Todd received an outburst of applause when she complained that it was difficult to sustain integration programs at the local level when all the rhetoric in Washington was about the virtues of charter schools and paying teachers based on test score gains.”
Obama’s Mixed Record on School Integration “In 2009, shortly after President Obama took office, a group of educators, policy advocates, and civil rights leaders came together under the banner of the National Coalition on School Diversity (NCSD) to try and push the new administration to take action. ‘Our very first goal was to get the Department of Education to take down the guidance from the Bush administration, which told schools they could not promote racial and economic diversity,’ said Phil Tegeler, executive director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council and NCSD coalition member. Their efforts were ultimately successful. By December 2011, the department posted a new guidance, which affirmed the Supreme Court’s decision and listed various ways school districts could pursue voluntary integration. Other NCSD efforts met less success. One of their primary objectives has been to get the Obama administration to prioritize school integration within their competitive federal grant programs. While Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has repeatedly said that he supports school diversity and wants to reduce racial isolation, his department has not, for the most part, translated such support into its competitive programs. Despite NCSD’s urging, the department declined to use its largest grant, the $4 billion Race to the Top initiative, to promote racial diversity. Duncan argued that including incentives for voluntary integration would have been too difficult to get through Congress. He also said that when it comes to successful integration efforts, we can’t ‘force these kinds of things.'” … “In a letter sent to Secretary Duncan last July, NCSD noted that while the Department of Education has included preferences for diversity within some grant programs, in practice, the department has ‘consistently underemphasized’ these incentives. Many grants still make no mention of diversity at all, and in cases where they do, officials tend to weigh other competitive priorities far more heavily, rendering the modest diversity incentives ineffective. For example, in one grant, applicants could earn an additional five points if their school was diverse, but applicants could earn twice as many bonus points if their school would serve a high-poverty student population. The only federal education initiative to significantly emphasize integration is the Magnet School Assistance Program (MSAP), a program first launched in 1976. However, MSAP has limited impact today due to the small amount of federal funding it receives. Even though charters are far more likely than magnets to exacerbate segregation, the department gave MSAP $91.6 million in 2014, compared to the $248.2 million it gave the Charter Schools Program. Advocates have not given up. Next month in D.C., the NCSD will be hosting a national two-day conference, bringing together scholars, educators, parents, students, and policymakers to continue ‘building the movement for diversity, equity, and inclusion.’ John King will be speaking on a panel there about the progress they’ve made, and further challenges they face on the federal level. NCSD hopes that King’s new role at the Department of Education will motivate the government to take integration efforts more seriously. The department’s press secretary, Dorie Nolt, told The American Prospectthat “we’ve taken meaningful steps, and we want to do more.” Yet this administration has fewer than 18 months left. And the next secretary of education could quite easily end even the modest progress that NCSD has fought for. ‘Promoting voluntary school integration is an area where the department has a lot of leeway to act on its own, in terms of trying to encourage state and local governments to prioritize diversity,’ said Tegeler. ‘But that also means the next department has a lot of leeway to not act.'” The National Coalition on School Diversity FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Washington, DC – In response to the joint guidance released today by the United States Department of Education and the United States Department of Justice, civil rights groups released a joint statement below. The guidance provides a roadmap for K-12 schools, colleges, and universities to implement the voluntary diversity and integration standards set by the Supreme Court’s decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and Parents Involved v. Seattle Schools (2007): “This thoughtfully crafted guidance affirms, as a majority of Supreme Court justices have recognized, that K-12 schools, colleges, and universities have compelling interests in ensuring integration and alleviating racial and economic isolation in our schools. As the new guidance states, “providing students with diverse, inclusive educational opportunities from an early age is crucial to achieving the nation’s educational and civic goals.” In short, we agree that these recommendations are good for our young people, for our communities and for our nation. Racial segregation and concentrated poverty are increasing in our nation’s schools, suggesting that we are backtracking on the successes of the civil rights movement. Many schools are more racially isolated today than they were in the 1970s. Today’s guidance recognizes the harms of resegregation and the benefits of diversity. We echo the Department of Education and the Department of Justice, as well as the Supreme Court majority, in acknowledging that “the skills students need for success in ‘today’s increasingly global marketplace can only be developed through exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints.’” Although K-12 and higher educational institutions can seek alternatives above and beyond the avenues suggested by the guidance, we stand ready to work with the Federal Government in this vital effort to promote inclusive educational opportunities, for the sake of all our children – and for the long-term well-being of our nation.” Signed, American Civil Liberties Union Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity |
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