Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

desegregation

desegregation

  • Maya Wiley's School Choice

    maya wil edit

    Maya Wiley (photo: @mayawiley)


    Maya Wiley is seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor as one of the leading progressives in the race, leaning heavily on her accolades as a civil rights attorney. Her education platform includes a number of the most aggressive and embattled proposals to integrate the city’s deeply segregated schools and she has said her position is forged by her own experience going to a segregated elementary school. But as she has sought the progressive mantle and pledged decisive action toward racial equality, Wiley has not emphasized school

    ...
  • Democratic Mayoral Candidates Stake Out Education Policy Positions

    mayor cha sch

    Pandemic education (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Leading Democratic candidates for mayor have appeared at several recent forums to outline their priorities on education and the possibility of running the country’s largest school system, as well as their strategies for achieving those aims. Discussion at the various forums, hosted by a number of diverse groups, was often focused on how the mayoral hopefuls would shape equitable and inclusive educational policy for New York City students, especially amid the fallout of the coronavirus

    ...
  • Unable to Move De Blasio, Carranza Leaves a Still Deeply Divided School System

    holds ava photo

    Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    In July 2018, a few months after New York City welcomed a new schools chancellor, The Atlantic asked, “Can Richard Carranza Integrate the Most Segregated School System in the Country?”

    Now we have our answer. On Friday, Carranza announced his resignation, attributing it to the emotional toll the pandemic had taken on

    ...
  • New York City Schools and The Myth of Meritocracy

    schools jhs bk

    Mayor de Blasio at a schools announcement (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayor's Office)


    When I was younger, my grandfather - an asylum seeker - used to tell me that hard work and persistence will always be rewarded. After all, he became successful in the United States after years of injustice in Egypt. And so, I believed him.

    But during my time in high school, I have learned that this idea of hard work amounting to success is not the case in the New York City public school system.

    Right before I was born, my family moved into a tiny downtown apartment

    ...
  • Max & Murphy Podcast: Maya Wiley Runs for Mayor

    maya wiley candidate edit

    Maya Wiley on the train (photo: @mayawiley)


    December 16, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Maya Wiley Runs for Mayor

    Maya Wiley joined the show to discuss her candidacy for Mayor of New York City, including why she's running, what she means by "dignity," her ideas for job growth, her record on internet access, and her platform on school desegregation.

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMaxand ...

  • When the School Segregationist Dog Whistle Becomes a Bullhorn

    chancellor rich mayor

    Students at school (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Dog-whistle politics refers to the use of racially-coded language as a strategy to rally perceived allies while providing plausible deniability against charges of racism. Donald Trump and the Republican Party regularly use racist dog whistles in the context of ...

  • The Covid Crisis Has Made It Additionally Clear: It’s Time to End School Admissions Screens in New York City

    brandon may 17 2019

    Brandon St. Luce, the author (photo: Dulce Michelle)


    Sunday, May 17 of this year, marked 66 years since the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that “separate is inherently unequal.” Yet today, many of our nation’s public school systems remain both separate and unequal. Nowhere is this clearer than in New York City, where I attend high school. 

    For five years, Mayor Bill de Blasio has touted an “Equity and Excellence” agenda while maintaining discriminatory admissions requirements at hundreds of middle and high

    ...
  • Reimagine Education in New York – Without Segregation

    erase ela

    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Governor Andrew Cuomo has called rightly on New Yorkers, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, to reimagine education. We should reimagine it without racial segregation. 

    The novel coronavirus’ path of destruction has starkly illuminated the structural racism that underpins so much inequality in America. That inequality includes educational segregation in New York. 

    Structural racism, which is the historical and ongoing racial discrimination and segregation of Black people in particular, is typically

    ...
  • Pandemic Reinforces De Blasio's Inaction on School Desegregation Recommendations

    deblasio chance carmen

    Mayor de Blasio during a school visit (photo: Edwin J. Torres/ Mayor's Office)


    As the coronavirus pandemic further exposes deep fissures in the city's education landscape for low-income students and students of color, it has also further stalled Mayor Bill de Blasio's already-halting efforts to integrate New York City's deeply segregated schools.

    In the nine months since a de Blasio-appointed advisory group released its final recommendations on ways to desegregate and in other ways improve city schools, virtually nothing has been said on the

    ...
  • What's The [DATA] Point? 16,000 - The Future of Gifted & Talented Schooling in New York City

    whats the data point


    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 79 -- 16,000, with David Tipson of Appleseed & City Council Member Robert Cornegy [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

    cornergy tippson wtdpMayor de Blasio's School Diversity Advisory Group recently released its second and final set of recommendations to integrate the city's schools and

    ...
  • Max & Murphy Podcast: Recommendations from the Mayor's School Diversity Task Force & What Comes Next

    may bdb ps 600 wbai 
    (photo: Rob Bennett/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Setember 4, 2019 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Recommendations from the Mayor's School Diversity Task Force & What Comes Next

    gonzales treyger wbaiMayor de Blasio's School Diversity Advisory Group recently released its second and final set of recommendations for how to desegregate and improve the city's schools. The panel made

    ...
  • Why It’s Time to Re-think Bloomberg Era Gifted & Talented Programming in New York City

    maybdb dance movement

    (photo: Rob Bennett/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s School Diversity Advisory Group (SDAG), on which we served, released its second report calling for all students to have access to enrichment opportunities as a forward-looking replacement for the city’s antiquated system of “gifted and talented” education programs. This provoked a significant volume of responses from a variety of stakeholders who have come to see G&T programs as legitimate and needed. But it is essential that anyone considering what the SDAG is recommending have

    ...
  • New York City is Waist-Deep in a School Desegregation Conversation - How Did We Get Here?

    maydbd district15

    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Earlier this week, the School Diversity Advisory Group (SDAG) released its second and final set of recommendations to integrate city schools, a significant development in the current chapter of the city’s response to deep racial and economic segregation in its school system, which is the largest in the country and home to 1.1 million students.

    This chapter began in 2014, 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education and Bill de Blasio’s first year as Mayor, when ...

  • School Diversity Group’s Second Set of Recommendations Expected Soon; Will Take on Admissions Policies

    district 15 div plan announce

    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Following the city’s adoption of 62 recommendations targeting diversity and desegregation in public schools, a new report expected this month from the same advisory group will aim to tackle the tough topics of screened admissions and gifted and talented programs.

    The two reports come from the Department of Education’s School Diversity Advisory Group, which Mayor Bill de Blasio formed in 2017 amid increasing demands that he take significant steps toward desegregating the city’s highly

    ...
  • 'We're Moving Now': City Pursues School Desegregation Measures, with Major Looming Test

    Carranza De Blasio education

    Chancellor Carranza & Mayor de Blasio (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York City schools Chancellor Richard Carranza announced on June 10 that the city will adopt 62 recommendations focused on diversity and integration in public schools, focusing on middle and elementary schools, from the Department of Education’s School Diversity Advisory Group, a new step toward school desegregation as many students, families, educators, and others have waited years for the city to make progress.

    ...

  • An Office of Civil Rights for New York Education

    king school visit table

    U.S. Education Secretary John King (photo via USDOE on flickr)


    Educational civil rights in New York are once again front and center.

    The Civil Rights Project at UCLA calls New York City the most segregated

    ...