Protected: Why the debate about “patriotic education” is also a debate about multiracial democracy, diversity, and integration

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How Local Community Coalitions Can Build Solidarity to Promote School Integration

The School Diversity Notebook is excited to offer a guest post from Dr. Liz Nigro (she/her)! Liz is a former public elementary school teacher, who worked for four years as a general and special educator in Washington, DC. Her experience teaching in two segregated school contexts, with vastly different educational opportunities, shaped her decision to…

Book Banning’s Historical Roots

Every time I read about “Moms for Liberty,” I think about Elizabeth Gillespie McRae’s fantastic book, whose title – “Mothers of Massive Resistance” – would be a more accurate name for the organization that has quickly become a driving force in book banning and censorship efforts. And, especially during Banned Books Week this week, I’ve…

Boston Media & the “Busing” Narrative

50 years ago last week, Black children on school buses hid under seats to avoid broken glass. White mobs in South Boston and Charlestown held signs that said “Whites have rights” and “Stop forced busing.” A half century since Boston’s first day of school in 1974, we still struggle to talk about it, though there…

Justice Thurgood Marshall’s Faith in Integration Is Still Right

In Melrose, MA, an 11 year-old Black girl was sitting in her 5th grade class when a classmate cut 10 inches off one of her braids, and then the teacher told her the extension probably fell out. Since you’re likely not familiar with the demographics of tiny Melrose, you may be constructing a narrative based…

Threats to democracy in white student segregation

I grew up in a town with a liberal reputation and an overwhelmingly white k-12 school district, where racism was an animating feature of everything from zoning laws to playground “jokes.” There are obviously many places like this, and, as you know, these places typically aren’t considered to be “segregated schools” in need of political…

New Research: Strategies for academic detracking

SD Notebook is back in 2024 with a new post by Margaret Thornton about her great new book on an overlooked aspect of contemporary school segregation: classroom ability tracking. We know that segregation has increased rather dramatically since the late ‘80’s. Of the schools that maintain some level of diversity/integration, however, we can’t fully know…

Lessons on school funding & diversity from the Malden teachers’ strike

I wrote this last year when the teachers’ union in my home district went on strike for (and won!) a better contract for the educators and students in our diverse and quirky little community. And, I’m reposting here in honor of the strikerversary earlier this week. Enjoy! It’s Monday October 17, 2022 and, as Malden…

Past, Present, and Future: Making and Unmaking the School-Prison Nexus

As part of a collaboration between SD Notebook and the Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC), this post is reproduced from the most recent issue of PRRAC’s “Poverty & Race” journal, which focuses on the relationship between school finance and segregation. And, it’s great. I highly recommend reading the articles themselves and/or tuning into…

How does anti-Asian bias contribute to school segregation in the US?

This guest post is written by Bonnie Siegler and Greer Mellon. Bonnie Siegler is a PhD candidate in sociology at Columbia University. Her research examines mechanisms that produce inequality and equality in education. Her current work focuses on how equity and diversity discourses relate to efforts for promoting racial equity and diversity in educational organizations.…

New Research: Advantaged parents and meritocracy in NYC school choice

SD Notebook is back from a mid-summer break with a guest post that extends a recent series on the relationship between parental decision-making and school segregation. Guest authored by Allison Roda and Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, this post summarizes their new study on how White parents navigate New York City’s complex school choice ecosystem. It includes stunning…

Competing schools or competing families? The segregative effects of neighborhood racial change and a school lottery in Washington DC

This guest post is written by Bryan Mann, a faculty member in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies department at the University of Kansas. Bryan uses geographic methods and spatial theories to understand educational policies and their effects. You can view his research team’s website at https://geographyedu.org/.  The summary below offers a contrast to a…

Betrayal of Brown: A recap of NCSD’s #RodriguezAt50 Twitter chat

San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, the case that essentially approved school funding inequity, has been called one of the “most important SCOTUS decisions you’ve never heard of.” I was thinking about why/how it got this reputation during the #RodriguezAt50 Twitter chat marking its 50th anniversary, hosted by the National Coalition on School Diversity…

New Research: Happiness-oriented parenting & school integration

Courtney Everts Mykytyn, my friend and late founder of Integrated Schools, always talked about the power of “playground” conversations in shaping the school choice decisions that parents make for their children. As a white person in our deeply segregated society, I’ve mostly had these kinds of conversations with other white parents. As you’d imagine, test…

New Research: Demographics of School District Secession

This guest post is written by Alexandra Cooperstock, a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the intersection of neighborhoods, schools, and policy for shaping inequality and educational opportunity. Originally published in the Social Forces journal, this post is a summary of research about school district secession in…