Shows
The Integrated Schools PodcastReflections on Season 11As Season 11 comes to a close, we wanted to spend some time reflecting on the lessons we've learned from this season and what we hope for in Season 12. We'll be off for the summer with a few possible bonus episodes, and back for real in the fall. In the mean time, we want to express our deepest appreciation for a number of people who make this podcast run. Firstly, to all of our guests, thank you for joining us, for sharing your stories and your wisdom with us. Being in conversation with each of you is a true...2025-06-1130 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastReflections On Season 10Nineteen episodes later, Season 10 comes to an end, and we are reflecting on an incredible season. Our themes for the season were the importance of public schools, the power of storytelling, the importance of community, and stamina, and we had 19 incredible episodes going deep on all of those themes, and more. Plus, we had our first ever live show!
Thanks to everyone who makes the Integrated Schools work possible, from our Board of Directors, to our chapter and network contacts, our leadership team, and bookclub moderators, we are so grateful to all of you. Special thanks to Darci and Jennifer for help...2024-06-1234 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastA Tipping Point for Change 70 Years After Brown v BoardMay 17th, 1954 the Supreme Court handed down its famous decision in the Brown v Board of Education of Topekacase. So much of the work of Integrated Schools is about trying to live into the promises made through that unanimous decision. On May 17th, 1973, a girl was born in Woodbridge, Virginia. That girl, Courtney Everts Mykytyn, would go on to found Integrated Schools in 2015, calling in parents and caregivers with privilege to work towards fulfilling the vision extolled by the court nineteen years to the day before she was born.
Tragically, Courtney was struck by a car and killed on Dec 29th, 2...2024-05-1720 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastParenting to Create the World We WantWe are fortunate to have many guests whose work is focused on research, policy, and the broader school integration movement. However, we know that most of our listeners are parents and caregivers, and many of our favorite episodes share the perspectives of those raising kids and making decisions about how to show up in schools, in communities, and in the country. Today's conversation with Jon Tobin (and his wife Amanda) is just that - an exploration of how one family continually finds ways to make decisions that reflect their values, that support their kids, and that work to make the wo...2024-02-2152 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastTaking Just Action for Integration with Richard and Leah RothsteinLike many of you, we were blown away by Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law for the ways it unveiled institutionalized racial segregation and its lingering impacts on our country. His methodical unmasking of the explicitly racist policies that led to the creation of the suburbs, the wealth gap, educational disparities and more helped expose the idea of "de facto" segregation, or segregation that occurs naturally, as a myth. The ways that we are segregated today were caused by intentional governmental policies, and we have yet to redress the harm caused.
While The Color Law presented compelling stories about how we g...2023-11-151h 07
The Integrated Schools PodcastThe Demands and Promises of Integration with John BlakeThe son of a Black father and a White mother, John Blake grew up in a deeply segregated, Black neighborhood in Baltimore with a great mystery - who was his mom? Until he was 17, all he knew about her was that she was White, her name was Shirley, and her family hated Black people. Meeting her, at age 17, began a journey of racial understanding and changed his life. Mr. Blake has been writing about race and religion as a reporter for over 25 years, and over those years he has come to discover that facts don't change people, relationships do. His rel...2023-10-041h 06
The Integrated Schools PodcastReflections on Season 9As Season 9 comes to a close, we reflect on some of the amazing conversations we had over the past 16 episodes, and hear from you about what you're grappling with. From the Heather McGhee's episode in the very beginning of the season through Episode 15 on school lunches, we tried to focus on solidarity and elevating voices that have been missing from our conversations.
Cathryn and The Saviors focused on the experience of one low-income parent, The Segregated Lives of Preschoolers focused on our youngest learners, The Intersections of Disability, Race, and Segregation began unpacking the needs of disabled students and caregivers. And, of cou...2023-05-3122 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastThe 100th Episode!We're celebrating 100 episodes! Over the past 4.5 years we've shared 100 conversations ranging from parent conversations to experts. Today, we reflect on what we've learned, we share clips from past episodes, and talk about what we hope for the future. If you're new here, this is a great place to start, if you've been with us since the beginning, you'll recognize some clips.
We share, hopes and dreams, tears and laughter, and deep gratitude for all of you for listening over these past 100 episodes.
Happy holidays and THANK YOU!!
LINKS:
The first episode of the podcast - Ep 1 – Intro to The Integrated Sc...2022-12-1457 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBack to School Transitions - Season 9 Kick Off!We're back!! Kicking off Season 9 with a conversation between Val and Andrew about transitions.
We have just transitioned back to school, and this year feels the most "normal" in quite some time. Additionally, we both have kids who have transitioned to new schools, including the transition to middle school for Andrew's oldest, and high school for Val's oldest. We reflect on new forms of parent engagement in these new schools, how we are thinking about empowering our kids to make their own choices while still upholding our family values, and the importance of continuing conversations about race with our kids a...2022-09-2854 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastParenting to Win: Who Pays for the Helicopter? (FROM 2019)FROM 2019
Intensive Parenting – helicopter, lawnmower, snowplow, free-range – is often pursued by White and privileged parents as a way to protect kids from failure and to ensure that they end up on the “winning” side of the vast economic inequality in our country. However, the ways that White and privileged parenting norms impact entire school communities often end up perpetuating existing disparities.
We’re joined by Dr. Jessica Calarco, Associate Professor of Sociology at Indiana University, who studies inequity in family life and education. Her recent book, Negotiating Opportunity: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in School, highlights many of the challenges that...2022-08-2452 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBetween We and They - Part 5 (Re-Release)FROM 2019: Beth is a mom of two grappling with race, parenting and her own privilege in America. Looking back over the past year, we follow Beth as she learns how the choices she makes for her daughters’ schooling shapes how she lives in her city… where she belongs, who she calls “WE.”
Part 5 finds Beth starting her second year at the school across the interstate. Meanwhile, her district, like many across the country, is in the midst of some upheaval – declining enrollment, school closures, consolidation. Being a part of the new school community has allowed Beth a different vantage point through wh...2022-08-0351 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBetween We and They - Part 4 (Re-Release)FROM 2019: Beth is a mom of two grappling with race, parenting and her own privilege in America. Looking back over the past year, we follow Beth as she learns how the choices she makes for her daughters’ schooling shapes how she lives in her city… where she belongs, who she calls “WE.”
Beth and her daughters reflect back on the year at their new school — the challenges, the differences, the joys. The transitions may not have been easy, but they all have felt a personal growth… and are learning about different ways to be.
Let us know what you think of this epis...2022-07-2734 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBetween We and They - Part 3 (Re-Release)FROM 2019: Beth is a mom of two grappling with race, parenting and her own privilege in America. Looking back over the past year, we follow Beth as she learns how the choices she makes for her daughters’ schooling shapes how she lives in her city… where she belongs, who she calls “WE.”
In part 3, we look back at a year that has been transformative for Beth — but not necessarily in the ways she expected. From thinking about her role in the PTA, to her racial identity, to how she relates to her former school community, Beth finds herself very much in-between...2022-07-2025 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBetween We and They - Part 2 (Re-Release)FROM 2019: Beth is a mom of two grappling with race, parenting and her own privilege in America. Looking back over the past year, we follow Beth as she learns how the choices she makes for her daughters’ schooling shapes how she lives in her city… where she belongs, who she calls “WE.”
In part 2, we find Beth two months into the school year grappling with the differences between the new school and the former one, trying to make sense of how she and her family fit into these two communities.
Let us know what you think of this episode, suggest future t...2022-07-1333 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBetween We and They - Part 1 (Re-Release)FROM 2019: Beth is a mom of two grappling with race, parenting and her own privilege in America. Looking back over the past year, we follow Beth as she learns how the choices she makes for her daughters’ schooling shapes how she lives in her city… where she belongs, who she calls “WE.”
In Part 1 – Something feels very wrong… Beth wonders about her choice to send her two kids to the highly sought after school in her neighborhood. What does it mean for one family to make a different kind of decision?
Let us know what you think of this episode, suggest futu...2022-07-0632 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastRace, Class, and Power in Our Schools: Mark and Max from School ColorsLargely considered to be one of the most diverse places in the world, Queens is heralded by its residents for the multitudes of ethnicities, languages, cultures and ways of life that exist there. But diversity isn't the whole story, especially not in District 28.
Mark and Max are back with Season 2 of School Colors. Season 1 was set in Central Brooklyn and focused on gentrification, Black self determination, and dug deep into the history of Bedford-Stuyvesant. Season 2 finds Mark and Max in Queens and School District 28, a district with a very distinct North side and South side- the further North you go...2022-06-241h 01
The Integrated Schools PodcastReflections on Season 7As Season 7 comes to close, Val and Andrew reflect on 17 episodes and share our most valuable takeaways and thoughts from this season, then we get into some juicy listener questions, as well as some announcements! Spoiler alert! Val has agreed to return for Season 8!!
As we reflect on the season, we have to take a moment to say thank you to a bunch of people who have made this season possible. First of all, all of our guests, who have shared their research, their stories, and their personal reflections. We are humbled to be in conversation with you all:
Sarah an...2022-05-2536 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastAnti-CRT, Book Bans, and A Call to HEALWhen the backlash against "CRT" started, we thought it would blow over. It felt as though the attacks were in such bad faith that they didn't even deserve a response. With nearly 35 states at least considering some type of classroom censorship bill, clearly, we were wrong. And yet, the question of what to do about it felt daunting to take on. And then, we found HEAL Together, an initiative from Race Forward.
H.E.A.L. (Honest Education Action & Leadership) Together, is building a movement of students, educators, and parents in school districts across the United States who believe that an honest...2022-05-1158 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastExamining Anti-Blackness: A Multiracial Parent RoundtableSome of the most meaningful episodes we record for this show are the conversations we have with parents and caregivers reflecting on the choices they make for their kids and their own learning journeys. Our last episode with Dr. Chantal Hailey examined the role of anti-Black racism in school preferences across racial identities. One of the themes was the many ways that anti-Blackness shows up in White communities, but also in communities of color. We deeply believe in the power of multiracial dialog and so thought we would pair that episode with a conversation with a multiracial group of parents reflec...2022-04-271h 03
The Integrated Schools PodcastUnpacking the Racial Hierarchy in School ChoicesDr. Chantal A. Hailey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research is at the intersections of race and ethnicity, stratification, urban sociology, education, and criminology. She is particularly interested in how micro decision-making contributes to larger macro segregation and stratification patterns and how racism creates, sustains, and exacerbates racial, educational, and socioeconomic inequality.
Her recent paper, Racial Preferences for Schools: Evidence from an Experiment with White, Black, Latinx, and Asian Parents and Students uses the New York City High School Admissions Process as a case study to understand how indiv...2022-04-131h 07
The Integrated Schools PodcastThe Debrief: Carol Anderson on White RageLast episode, Carol Anderson on White Rage, was a lot, so we're taking today's episode to discuss.
LINKS:
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Nation’s Divide
We Are Not Yet Equal – a young readers version of White Rage
One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy
The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.
Eye’s Off The Prize – Dr. Anderson’s 2003 book on the shift from a fight for human rights to civil rights at the NAACP
Use these links or start at our Bookshop.org storefront to support local bookstores, and send a portion...2022-03-3031 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastCarol Anderson on White Rage"Since the days of enslavement, African Americans have fought to gain access to quality education. Education can be transformative. It reshapes the health outcomes of a people; it breaks the cycle of poverty; it improves housing conditions; it raises the standard of living. Perhaps, most meaningfully, educational attainment significantly increases voter participation. In short, education strengthens a democracy."
Dr. Carol Anderson is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University and author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Nation's Divide, One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy, and The Second: Rac...2022-03-161h 06
The Integrated Schools PodcastA Framework for Antiracist EducationFounded in 2021, the Center for Antiracist Education’s (CARE) mission is to equip antiracist educators with the knowledge and curriculum to create schools and classrooms that push back on the destructive legacy of racism. Our co-host Val, serves as their academic director in her day job.
They recently released a framework for antiracist education that provides teachers and school leaders with concrete, actionable steps to take in their journey towards being antiracist. These steps are organized by the five CARE Principles- the core areas that CARE believes require attention in order to move towards antiracism. They are:
Affirm the dignity and humanity...2022-03-0254 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastAn Overdue Reckoning on Indigenous EducationWe keep a running list of ideas for episodes - topics to cover, guests we'd like to interview, conversations with parents we'd like to have - and near the top of that list, for far longer than we'd care to admit, has been a conversation about Native and Indigenous education. Finding the right voices to tell the right stories is always a challenge, but, if we're being honest, it felt somehow acceptable that we hadn't gotten to it yet. The conversation we haver to share today completely changed that for us, and is a great opportunity to recommit ourselves to...2022-02-161h 03
The Integrated Schools PodcastRevisiting Heather McGhee on How Racism Hurts Us AllHeather McGhee has been in public policy for the past 20 years, largely focused on economics. After nearly 16 years at Demos, a "think-and-do" tank, including four years as president, she realized that despite incredibly compelling economic research, at times, decision makers made decisions counter to what the best evidence showed. She took a leave of absence as president, and embarked on a journey to try to answer a simple question - Why can't we have nice things? We, being all Americans, and nice things being things that most developed nations have managed to provide for their people - health care, parental leav...2022-02-081h 05
The Integrated Schools PodcastParenting for Racial JusticeAngela Berkfield, a White woman living in Brattleboro, Vermont, was deeply committed to social justice. In 2013, she was a co-founder of The Root Social Justice Center, a hub for social justice organizing in Vermont. From food insecurity, to youth empowerment, they have been focused on racial justice organizing, community advocacy, and relationship building for nearly a decade.
In 2014, a friend of Angela’s, Annique, asked her if she would be willing to do trainings for parents about how to talk with their kids about topics like racial microaggressions, gender-neutral pronouns, and Black Lives Matter — topics she was discussing on the regu...2022-02-0256 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastYear End: Listener QuestionsListeners regularly reach out with questions - things that they are seeing in their own neighborhoods, things that we haven't addressed, but should, etc. For the final episode of 2021, we thought we'd answer as many as we could. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions. If we didn't get to your question, or if there is something else on your mind, let us know so we can include it in a future "mailbag" episode - hello@integratedschools.org.
As we enter the holiday season and folks are thinking about year-end giving, we'd like to ask for your support of...2021-12-1554 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastTeacher Check-In RevisitedBack in April of 2020 we had a conversation with two teachers, Kara in the Minneapolis area, and Zoe in Philadelphia. They shared their struggles with shifting to remote school, trying to reach their students to provide devices, hot spots, and food, and the challenge of supporting the students with the greatest needs through the early days of the COVID crisis.
Today, it's easy for parents to feel like things are almost back to normal in schools. However, in many ways, teachers are feeling the cost of the crisis more acutely now than at any point in the past two years...2021-12-0149 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastNot Your Model MinorityDr. Sarah-Soonling Blackburn is an educator, speaker, and professional development specialist. Growing up in a mixed race, Asian and White family, and spending most of her childhood in various countries in Asia, ideas of belonging have always had salience for her. From the classroom to Learning for Justice, her work has focused on the things that help students feel seen and included. She joins us to discuss the myth of the Model Minority and helps contextualize the role of Asian American identities in our collective understanding and education about race and America.
With a bit of a history lesson, Dr. Blackb...2021-11-1756 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastRedrawing the Lines: Undoing the History of SegregationIf you think about a "segregated school", what image comes to mind? Quite often, the cultural narrative says that that is a school with almost exclusively students of color. What about a school with 98% White students? Is that a "segregated school"? While we don't often think of it that way, it is clearly segregated. Tomás Monarrez is an economist by training. As he was studying the question of school and housing segregation at the Urban Institute, he was struck by the ways that the field of economics falls into the same traps that we fall into as a culture - segrega...2021-11-0358 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastGenerational Work: Stefan Lallinger on IntegrationIn 1954, Louis Redding, Delaware's first Black attorney, joined the legal team at the NAACP to argue the Brown v Board case. Having agued two of the lower court cases that were incorporated into the Brown case, he was a key member of the team, along with Thurgood Marshall, who won perhaps the mostly widely known and celebrated court case ever. Sixty years later, his grandson, Stefan Lallinger, found himself teaching at school in New Orleans with over 90% students of color. This segregation wasn't caused by explicit, legal requirements for segregated schools, and yet it still happened. Lallinger's curiosity led him to get...2021-10-2058 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastMoving and Choosing A SchoolThe very first episode of the Integrated Schools Podcast featured a conversation between our late founder, Courtney Mykytyn, and two mothers who were early in their journeys toward anti-racist school integration. Since then, Anna and Sarah have continued to be influential members of the Integrated Schools community, and both found themselves moving over the past 18 months. While both of their families had moved in the past, this was the first time they engaged in that process with a deep commitment to anti-racist school integration.
They share their process, and the challenges they faced, as they grappled with what it means to...2021-10-0659 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastNew Season, New Perspectives . . . New Co-Host!!In 2016, Val Brown recognized a silence in the education community regarding issues of race, and a gap in learning opportunities for educators. In response she founded #ClearTheAir, a platform for educators to learn about the intersections of history, racism, and education.
In 2019, she reached out to Integrated Schools to see if we might walk this road towards anti-racist school integration together. However, she had a question - as a Black mom, she asked, "do I belong at Integrated Schools? Is there a place for me?"
This is a question we have been wrestling with internally for some time. Leadership team membe...2021-09-2232 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastLearning In Public with Courtney Martin---SPECIAL NOTE ---
If you enjoyed this conversation, a wonderful artist in the Bay Area, named Jen Bloomer, has created a piece of art inspired by Learning in Public. It's beautiful and she has generously offered to donate the proceeds from sales to Integrated Schools. Please check it out and support a wonderful artist and our organization.
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From the time Courtney Martin strapped her daughter, Maya, to her chest for walks around her neighborhood, she was curious about Emerson Elementary, a public school down the street from her Oakland home. She learned that White families in their gentrifying neighborhood...2021-08-041h 10
The Integrated Schools PodcastReckoning with Plessy: 125 Years of Separate But EqualOne hundred and twenty five years ago this week, The Supreme Court announced its decision in the case of Plessy v Ferguson. The case infamously declared that separate but equal was constitutional. The setting for the case was a train car, but the ramifications on society were profound. And while the Brown v Board decision 63 years later did away with some of those ramifications, in many ways, Plessy remains with us today.
Coming in the wake of the civil war, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments make up what are known as the Reconstruction Amendments, the Amendments intended to guarantee t...2021-05-2654 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBvB@67- Greg and Carol RevisitedIn the fifth episode in our Brown v. Board at 67: The Stories We Tell Ourselves series, we step away from scholarship to take a moment to listen. I Hope They Hear it in Our Voices is a conversation with two Black parents who live in different parts of the U.S. and who have had very different -- yet very similar -- school experiences. Greg and Carol tell us a lot about how far we have come since Brown v. Board, about how much work we still have to do, and the very real costs of “access to resources”. With deep...2021-05-1453 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBvB@67 - David Hinojosa RevistedFor the fourth episode in our Brown v. Board at 67: The Stories We Tell Ourselves series, we talk with Civil Rights attorney David Hinojosa. School segregation is too often painted as binary issue between Black and White people; learning other histories shows that this is far from true. Complicating the picture of what preceded and came as a result of Brown v. Board, Mr. Hinojosa shares a history lesson on the segregation of Latinx communities across the US since the late 1800s. We discuss the politics of race and language, the importance of shared experiences and the deep fights for...2021-05-1343 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBvB@67 - Amanda Lewis RevisitedDr. Amanda Lewis (Despite the Best Intentions: How Racial Inequality Thrives in Good Schools, co-authored with John Diamond) joins us for this third episode of our Brown v. Board at 67: The Stories We Tell Ourselves series. Dr. Lewis’s research takes her to a school that is desegregated on paper but segregated within the building. It is a school, like many, with “race neutral” policies that hide the very real racialized practices in the building. Add to that a dose of opportunity hoarding, and equitable policies become very difficult to institute. Brown v. Board focused on desegregating schools rather than integr...2021-05-1245 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBvB@67 - Noliwe Rooks RevisitedFor the second episode in our Brown v. Board at 67: The Stories We Tell Ourselves series, we talk with Dr. Noliwe Rooks (Cornell). Her book, Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education, as well as some of her more recent research around the pushback to school desegregation from communities of color and the decimation of the Black teaching corps following Brown v. Board, provide context in which to understand the full range of outcomes from the court decision.
While Dr. Rucker Johnson, in part 1, showed us some of the many benefits of desegregation, Dr. Rooks reminds us o...2021-05-1137 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBvB@67 - Rucker Johnson RevisitedAs we approach the 67th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954), we are revisiting our series looking at the stories we tell ourselves about Brown v. Board. The way we understand this case and its legacies do the work of making sense of our past and mapping out our future.
In this first episode, we are joined by Dr. Rucker Johnson (UC Berkeley). Dr. Johnson shares some of the research and findings in his book, Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works. Using a longitudinal study of the children and grandchildren of Brown v...2021-05-1035 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBetter Schools Through Parent EmpowermentAurelio Montemayor has been organizing parents for decades. His work at the Intercultural Research Development Association, or IDRA, as a family engagement coordinator has focused on a specific type of parent engagement, known as parent empowerment.
He defines the four ways parents are typically engaged in schools as:
As free labor and fundraisers.
Through education programs designed to help improve parenting
Through education programs designed for self improvement
Through meaningful parent / caregiver empowerment
This fourth form of parent engagement - parent empowerment, is the only form that he believes leads to school wide improvement for all kids. When done well, it...2021-04-2852 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastWhere We Begin - An Integrated Schools WebinarPlease join us for How We Show Up (part 1) on April 19th, 5pm PDT / 8pm EDT. Registration is free!
Our country has, at times, and in fits and starts, worked toward desegregation, but never meaningfully worked toward real integration. Desegregation is about the moving of bodies, the demographic percentages in a school building. Integration is about, in the words of David Kirkland, "fundamentally working to organize our society in a different way, where our differences are seen as spaces that we not only celebrate but LET BE, where this forms the vibrancy of our being as a society." It is a...2021-04-1447 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastZero-Sum Politics: Heather McGhee on How Racism Hurts Us AllHeather McGhee has been in public policy for the past 20 years, largely focused on economics. After nearly 16 years at Demos, a "think-and-do" tank, including four years as president, she realized that despite incredibly compelling economic research, at times, decision makers made decisions counter to what the best evidence showed. She took a leave of absence as president, and embarked on a journey to try to answer a simple question - Why can't we have nice things? We, being all Americans, and nice things being things that most developed nations have managed to provide for their people - health care, parental lea...2021-03-3156 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastIn Full View of Race: Elise Boddie on IntegrationMartin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From a Birmingham Jail is well known for its reflections on justice. Quotes such as “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” and “Justice too long delayed is justice denied”, are well known and celebrated, but there's another section of the letter focused on King's disappointment with the White moderate. He says,
"I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the White moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er...2021-03-1750 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastThe Power of Privilege: WPLN's The PromiseSeason 2 of WPLN's The Promise takes on one of the most contentious topics in America, what has been deemed the "Great Equalizer", but more and more feels like the Great Divider: Public Education.
In May of 1963, President Kennedy addressed the graduates of Vanderbilt University (a full year before they would admit their first Black student), and said, "I speak to you ... not of your rights as Americans, but of your responsibilities... They do not rest with equal weight upon the shoulders of all. For, of those to whom much is given, much is required."
More than 55 years later, reporter Meribah...2021-03-031h 03
The Integrated Schools PodcastEPIC's "Nothing About Us": Youth Theater on IntegrationThe Epic NEXT Program tasks 15-20 high school students with researching, writing, and performing a play about a social issue, usually related to educational justice. The idea, is that those most impacted by the system, are those most likely to come up with meaningful solutions, and that theater can be used as tool for social change.
Back in 2018, New York Appleseed, an advocacy organization fighting for integrated schools and communities, commissioned EPIC to create a show about school segregation. The result was Nothing About Us, a 30 minute stage play written and performed by high school students.
The process begins with in...2021-02-171h 05
The Integrated Schools PodcastThird Wave School Desegregation: A Call for Real IntegrationWe’re back! Kicking off season 6 with a webinar hosted by The Black Educators Initiative (BEI), and a chance to share a bit of our thinking about why we do the work we do at Integrated Schools.
BEI, as a project of Urban Teachers, is working to grow the Black teaching corps. When executive director, Dr. Robert Simmons, invited us to participate in their speaker series, we were honored, and slightly terrified. Thinking about presenting the work we do to the BEI audience pushed us to stop and consider our focus at Integrated Schools, and why we do the work we...2021-02-0334 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastSaying Goodbye to Season 5On November 13th, 2019, we started Season 5 of this podcast. Our definition of "season" has pretty much always just meant as many episodes as we can make before we need a break, and we haven't really taken a break since last November. This episode, the 23rd of the season is admittedly a bit of self-referential navel gazing, but I wanted to take just a bit of your time to wrap up the season before we, finally, take a break.
It is an all-volunteer team that helps put these episodes together. From Molly, who makes our transcripts, to Courtney, who has done all...2020-10-2210 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastFamily Engagement and EquityWe were just in your feeds a week ago with Congressman Bobby Scott, but we couldn't wait to get this episode out.
Dr. Ann Ishimaru is a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, where her work focuses on the intersection of leadership, school - community relationships, and education equity. With a focus on both formal power structures, and on the more informal power that can come from community, she believes that leadership can play a vital role in creating equitable learning environments for all kids, particularly those who have been historically marginalized in education.
Through her research, which she...2020-10-0759 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastCongressman Bobby Scott on Strength in DiversityThe Strength in Diversity Act passed the House of Representatives on Sept 15th, 2020. Coming out of The Committee on Education and Labor, chaired by Congressman Bobby Scott, the bill aims to assist localities that want to attempt voluntary desegregation plans, do that constitutionally. Since the Supreme Court's decision in the Parents Involved case from 2007, many districts have avoided desegregation plans for fear of running afoul of that ruling. The Strength in Diversity Act provides grants to states to plan programs that can decrease segregation, while also remaining legal.We're joined by Chairman Scott do discuss the bill, and...2020-09-3026 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEquity According to Angela Glover BlackwellFor Angela Glover Blackwell, a brief stint at the Rockefeller Foundation brought to light a fundamental difference in how we think about driving positive change, and fighting for justice abroad versus here at home. The international focus was on equity - what are the outcomes we hope to achieve, and how do we back into the inputs required? The national focus was on equality - how do we make sure that everyone gets the same inputs to start with.
Through the work of her organization, PolicyLink, she has spent the past 20 years pushing for equity to be our North Star. Call...2020-09-1658 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastICYMI: School ColorsBrooklyn Deep is the media arm of The Brooklyn Movement Center, a Black-led, membership-based organization of primarily low-to-moderate income Central Brooklyn residents. They work to build power and pursue self-determination in Bedford-Stuyvesant & Crown Heights by nurturing local leadership, waging campaigns and winning concrete improvements in people’s lives.
In 2019, Brooklyn Deep released an 8-part podcast documentary called School Colors. Spanning 150 years of history, it looks at race, class and power through the schools of Bedford-Stuyvesant. It features well researched history, compelling story telling, and provides a nuanced look at many of the educational debates happening in cities today (particular credit to E...2020-09-021h 02The Integrated Schools PodcastChecklists and Merit Badges: JPB Gerald on WhitenessJPB Gerald began his career as an English language teacher. Bothered by the inherent racism he saw in the field, and reflecting on his own upbringing in predominantly White, "good" schools, he broadened his academic interests to race and Whiteness. Currently a doctoral student at CUNY — Hunter College, JPB has been writing and doing interviews for many outlets in the midst of conversations about school in the fall. While he has great insights into the challenges to equity presented by COVID, he also brings a deep understanding of many of the issues we address at Integrated Schools.
This conversation was going...2020-08-1949 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastReopening Schools and EquityDr. Shayla Reese Griffin is the co-founder of The Justice Leaders Collaborative, an author, educator, and mother. As the challenges of school for the fall have come into focus, finding solutions based in equity has been a struggle. Dr. Griffin has written about it, calling for space in buildings to be prioritized to those with the highest needs, for us to consider where our time and energy might best be spent in this moment of crisis, and for parents to be paid to stay home to take care of their kids.
She joins us for a conversation about the fall, but...2020-08-0554 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastRevisiting Not In My Suburbs: Milliken v Bradley @46July 25th will mark the 46th anniversary of the SCOTUS ruling on the Milliken v. Bradley case. Today, we revisit our episode from a year ago about this important and under-appreciated case. Joined by Michelle Adams, Constitutional Law Professor at Cardozo School of Law, who is writing Soul Force: Detroit, The Supreme Court, and the Epic Battle for Racial Justice in America, we discuss the case and its implications for today.
Based in Detroit, the Milliken decision functionally halted the promise of Brown v Board of Education at the city limits, allowing all-white suburbs (created through policies like redlining) to m...2020-07-2247 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastIntegrateNYC: Youth Voice for Real IntegrationWe're joined by Karla and Jedidah - two high school students in New York City who are leaders at IntegrateNYC. This youth led organization fights for integration and equity in all NYC schools. From protest to policy, they center student voice because students are the ones most directly impacted by the segregation, and the ones with the most at stake.
Recognizing that desegregation alone isn't enough to solve for equity, IntegrateNYC developed the 5 Rs of real integration. They are:
Race and Enrollment
Resources
Relationships
Restorative Justice
Representation of teachers and staff
They argue that schools need to address all 5 Rs to ac...2020-07-0939 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastWhite Supremacy and Black Educational Excellence: Hidden Stories of the Integration MovementThe National Coalition for School Diversity serves as the hub of the school integration movement. While their annual conference was postponed due to COVID, the keynote panel was held virtually. A conversation conceived in honor of Integrated Schools founder and former podcast co-host, Courtney, it offers a chance to better understand the history of desegregation so that we might better conceive of how to move forward. A chance to know better, so that we might do better.
Through a conversation facilitated by journalist Dani McClain, Dr. Vanessa Siddle-Walker tells the story of the excellent, robust, and holistic Black schools and edu...2020-06-101h 00The Integrated Schools PodcastRaising White Kids with Jennifer HarveyThe Reverend, Dr. Jennifer Harvey is a parent, a writer, an educator, and an activist. Her 2018 book Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America offers age-appropriate insights for teaching children how to address racism when they encounter it and tackles tough questions about how to help white kids be mindful of racial relations while understanding their own identity and the role they can play for justice.
We discuss the book, but also her personal journey from elementary school, where she was bussed under a court ordered desegregation plan to a predominately Black school, to her time at...2020-05-2158 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBrown v Board at 66 (BONUS)Last year, leading up the 65th anniversary, we put together a 6 part mini-series called "The Stories We Tell Ourselves - Moving From Desegregation to Integration". It is in no way a comprehensive history, but hopefully it complicates the stories we tell about Brown v Board. These stories and others about our past desegregation efforts have a huge impact on how we interact with school today, Our hope is that a more honest assessment of the history can be a first step towards real integration.
LINKS:
Part 1 - With Rucker Johnson, author of Children Of The Dream: Why School Integration Works
Part...2020-05-1703 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastCOVID-19: Matt Gonzales on EquityMatt Gonzales is an educational justice advocate and Director of the Integration and Innovation Initiative at the NYU Metro Center. We are incredibly fortunate to have him as a member of the Integrated Schools Advisory Board. We had a chance to sit down with Matt this week and talk to him about the implications of COVID-19, what building equity could look like now and in the future, and why anti-racist integration matters now more than ever.
Please join us for the NCSD Virtual Keynote on May 14th at 2pm EDT. Free registration is available here.
LINKS:
Grading for Equity Recommendations...2020-05-1351 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastCOVID-19: Teacher Check-InTeaching with an equity mindset is a challenge in the best of times, but this crisis has added another layer of challenge to an already daunting task. We're joined by two high school teachers - Zoe from Philadelphia, and Kara from Minneapolis. They discuss the challenges of moving to online learning while trying to keep equity at the forefront.
We discuss the ways that White and/or privileged parents can be helpful in this moment, and how we might think about what comes when this is all over.
LINKS:
For more on Zoe's school - check out this article.
To read...2020-04-2255 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastCOVID-19: Finding Community in IsolationGiven the reality of social distancing, how do we reconcile a desire for educational justice, a drive for anti-racist education, with the fact that we're stuck at home trying, or maybe not, to educate our kids in vastly inequitable circumstances. This is not a How-To guide, but a conversation about trying to live our values in challenging times. Garrett Bucks joins us, along with Anna, to talk through how we are thinking about this moment, for ourselves, our kids, and our communities. What do we want our kids to remember from this time, and how can we focus our attention, our...2020-04-0350 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastChoosing a School: Values, Privilege, and ResponsibilityIf you listened to The Impacts of Testing Our Kids and Measuring Our Schools (Parts 1 and 2), you heard about some of the issues with using test scores or data aggregators to judge the quality of a school. But if not test scores, then what? Making a choice about school is a privilege, and with that privilege, comes a responsibility. How do you bring your values to that decision, when the information available is so problematic?
We're joined by two mothers, Dana from Brooklyn and Meredith from Minneapolis, who both have kids entering elementary school next year. They talk about how they...2020-03-1853 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastThe Impacts of Testing Our Kids and Ranking Our Schools (Part 2)Many local communities are engaged in conversations about how school quality should be determined and how that information should be shared. Those conversations take place in the shadow of GreatSchools.org - who provides a 1-10 rating for nearly every public school in the country. These ratings have a major impact on everything from curriculum to housing prices.
Matt Barnum (Chalkbeat) wrote about the ways GreatSchools ratings can nudge families towards schools with fewer Black and Brown students. He joins us to discuss his reporting as well as what current education research can tell us about just how malleable people are...2020-03-0456 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastThe Impacts of Testing Our Kids and Ranking Our Schools (Part 1)In the first of two parts looking at how we measure and communicate school quality, and how that impacts our educational system, we’re joined by Professor Jack Schneider. He has been thinking about school ratings, and school quality for many years. He started the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Educational Assessment, a coalition of school and district leaders working to reimagine school assessment and accountability by including multiple measures of student engagement, student achievement, and school environment, and emphasizing performance assessments in the classroom to measure students' deeper mastery of content and skills.
We dig into what we are measuring, an...2020-02-1939 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEducational Justice Through Reparations with Justin HansfordHoward University Law School is often called the launching pad for Brown v Board. Thurgood Marshall taught there, Charles Hamilton Houston, who was, in many ways, the architect of the multi-year legal strategy that led to BvB, was a dean. Yet here, in 2019, the work that Howard launched is still incomplete. By many measures, our schools are as segregated, if not more, than they were before the unanimous Brown v Board decision. The historical and ongoing segregation is core to educational and racial injustice, and constitutes a breach that our guest, Professor Justin Hansford, argues is in need of repair...2020-02-0538 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastGentrification and School SegregationWe're joined by Dr. Kfir Mordechay, Assistant Professor at Pepperdine University and a research fellow at the UCLA Civil Rights Project to talk about gentrification and school segregation. This kick of to season 5 is a return to our usual podcast format of casual conversations, and this is one we've been wanting to tackle for quite some time. Gentrification comes up in discussions of school segregation all the time and we are fortunate to have Dr. Mordechay to help us think about the possibilities and pitfalls.
Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to...2019-11-1345 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBetween We and They: A School Integration Story (Part 5)Beth is a mom of two grappling with race, parenting and her own privilege in America. Looking back over the past year, we follow Beth as she learns how the choices she makes for her daughters’ schooling shapes how she lives in her city… where she belongs, who she calls “WE.”
Part 5 finds Beth starting her second year at the school across the interstate. Meanwhile, her district, like many across the country, is in the midst of some upheaval - declining enrollment, school closures, consolidation. Being a part of the new school community has allowed Beth a different vantage point through whi...2019-10-1838 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBetween We and They: A School Integration Story (Part 4)Beth is a mom of two grappling with race, parenting and her own privilege in America. Looking back over the past year, we follow Beth as she learns how the choices she makes for her daughters’ schooling shapes how she lives in her city… where she belongs, who she calls “WE.”
Beth and her daughters reflect back on the year at their new school -- the challenges, the differences, the joys. The transitions may not have been easy, but they all have felt a personal growth… and are learning about different ways to be.
Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessio...2019-10-1734 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBetween We and They: A School Integration Story (Part 3)Beth is a mom of two grappling with race, parenting and her own privilege in America. Looking back over the past year, we follow Beth as she learns how the choices she makes for her daughters’ schooling shapes how she lives in her city… where she belongs, who she calls “WE.”
In part 3, we look back at a year that has been transformative for Beth -- but not necessarily in the ways she expected. From thinking about her role in the PTA, to her racial identity, to how she relates to her former school community, Beth finds herself very much in-betwe...2019-10-1625 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBetween We and They: A School Integration Story (Part 2)Beth is a mom of two grappling with race, parenting and her own privilege in America. Looking back over the past year, we follow Beth as she learns how the choices she makes for her daughters’ schooling shapes how she lives in her city… where she belongs, who she calls “WE.”
In part 2, we find Beth two months into the school year grappling with the differences between the new school and the former one, trying to make sense of how she and her family fit into these two communities.
Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.
This series was produced b...2019-10-1533 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastBetween We and They: A School Integration Story (Part 1)Beth is a mom of two grappling with race, parenting and her own privilege in America. Looking back over the past year, we follow Beth as she learns how the choices she makes for her daughters’ schooling shapes how she lives in her city… where she belongs, who she calls “WE.”
In Part 1 - Something feels very wrong… Beth wonders about her choice to send her two kids to the highly sought after school in her neighborhood. What does it mean for one family to make a different kind of decision?
Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.
This series was pr...2019-10-1428 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastNot In My Suburbs: Milliken v. Bradley @ 45 (BONUS)Today, July 25th, is the 45th anniversary of the SCOTUS ruling on the Milliken v. Bradley case. We’re joined by Michelle Adams, Constitutional Law Professor at Cardozo School of Law, who is writing a book on this important and under-appreciated case.
Based in Detroit, this case functionally halted the promise of Brown v Board of Education at the city limits, allowing all-white suburbs (created through policies like redlining) to maintain all-white schools. We talk about the history of the case, and what it means today.
LINKS:
-Parents Involved v Seattle Schools
-Keyes v Denver School District 1
-Swann v Mecklenburg
-B...2019-07-2546 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastBusing: The Terms of the Debate (BONUS)We're joined by Matt Delmont. He's the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of History at Dartmouth College, and he wrote the book on busing - 2016's Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation. Given the prominence "busing" has had in discussions about school desegregation, particularly in light of the exchange between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden at a recent democratic presidential primary debate, we thought we'd take a break from taking a break, and talk about "busing".
LINKS:
-Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation - Dr. Delmont's 2016 book on desegregation
...2019-07-1742 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastICYMI: Seeing White (BONUS)The Duke Center for Documentary Studies produces as podcast called Scene On Radio. From February to August of 2017, they released a 14 part series called Seeing White. Many discussions of race focus on anyone who isn't White, leaving Whiteness as the default, or the norm. This series, as they say, turns the lens around to look at Whiteness directly - what does it mean? where did it come from?
We are thrilled to present some highlights from their series here, with some additional discussion of how these topics relate more directly to school integration. We highly recommend listening to the entire seri...2019-07-1058 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastICYMI: The Miseducation Podcast (BONUS)While we are off preparing for a new season starting in the fall, we wanted to share a few of our favorite podcasts, so you don't forget about us. We regularly hear that we should include student voices, and, while we are working on that for a future episode, in the mean time, we're thrilled to be able to bring you an episode of The Miseducation Podcast. This is a student driven podcast from New York City, and we've been blown away by the insight these students have on the issues of segregation.
Huge thanks to the MIsedcuation team for...2019-06-2628 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastEp 23 - Grappling with Brown v. Board (BvB@65)In this final episode of the series Brown v. Board at 65: The Stories We Tell Ourselves, we take some time to grapple with the stories we have heard. Reflecting on what our guests have shared (Dr. Rucker Johnson, Dr. Noliwe Rooks, Dr. Amanda Lewis, David Hinojosa, Greg and Carol), we talk with Anna about what we have learned and where we go from here. For the path forward, why does it matter to distinguish between desegregation and integration, to decenter Whiteness, and to think about the interactions between policy and cultural shifts?
LINKS:
Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Work...2019-05-2250 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastEp 22 - I Hope They Hear It In Our Voices (BvB@65)In the fifth episode in our Brown v. Board at 65: The Stories We Tell Ourselves series, we step away from scholarship to take a moment to listen. I Hope They Hear it in Our Voices is a conversation with two Black parents who live in different parts of the U.S. and who have had very different -- yet very similar -- school experiences. Greg and Carol tell us a lot about how far we have (not) come since Brown v. Board, about how much work we still have to do, and the very real costs of “access to resources”. With...2019-05-1551 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastEp 21 - Beyond Black and White with David Hinojosa (BvB@65)For the fourth episode in our Brown v. Board at 65: The Stories We Tell Ourselves series, we talk with Civil Rights attorney David Hinojosa. School segregation is too often painted as binary issue between Black and White people; learning other histories shows that this is far from true. Complicating the picture of what preceded and came as a result of Brown v. Board, David shares a history lesson on the segregation of Latinx communities across the US since the late 1800s. We discuss the politics of race and language, the importance of shared experiences and the deep fights for educational...2019-05-0849 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastEp20 - Amanda Lewis on Desegregation Without Integration (BvB@65)Amanda Lewis (Despite the Best Intentions: How Racial Inequality Thrives in Good Schools, co-authored with John Diamond) joins us for this third episode of our Brown v. Board at 65: The Stories We Tell Ourselves series. Dr. Lewis’sresearch takes her to a school that is desegregated on paper but segregated within the building. It is a school, like many, with “race neutral” policies that hide the very real racialized practices in the building. Add to that a dose of opportunity hoarding, and equitable policies become very difficult to institute. Brown v. Board focused on desegregating schools rather than integrating classrooms, but the st...2019-05-0148 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastEp 19 - Segrenomics, Black Teachers, and Noliwe Rooks (BvB@65)For the second episode in our Brown v. Board at 65: The Stories We Tell Ourselves series, we talk with Dr. Noliwe Rooks(Cornell). Her book, Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education, as well as some of her more recent research around the pushback to school desegregation from communities of color and the decimation of the Black teaching corps following Brown v. Board, provide context in which to understand the full range of outcomes from Brown v Board.
While Dr. Johnson, in Ep 18, showed us some of the many benefits of desegregation, Dr. Rooks reminds us of many...2019-04-2447 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastEp 18 - Rucker Johnson and the Grandchildren of Desegregation (BvB@65)As we approach the 65th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954), we are pleased to present a special series looking at the stories we tell ourselves about Brown v. Board. The way we understand this case and its legacies do the work of making sense of our past and mapping out our future. With the brilliance of some amazing guests, we unpack some of these popular narratives and the ways in which they have undermined our ability to deal with racial and educational injustice.
In this first episode, we are joined by Dr. Rucker...2019-04-1845 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 17 - Public Schools, Private MoneyFor the finale of Season 2, we're joined by Dr. Shelly Arsneault, Professor of Political Science & Public Administration at California State Fullerton, who is collaborating on an upcoming book called Our Kids, Our Money, and Our Schools: The Persistence of Inequality in Public School Finance. We discuss the many ways in which private money is funneled into public schools - which schools get it, what they use it for, and what the impact is on the overall system of public education.
From PTAs to booster clubs, to education foundations, we see resources flowing into the schools with the least needs, further...2019-03-2046 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 16 - Too Bad, Just Fine, and Whiteness CenteredIn this episode we bring Anna back to grapple with a few things that have been on our minds of late. We discuss the David Kirkland episode (Ep. 14 -- be sure to listen if you haven’t!) and answer some listener questions. Dr. Kirkland cautioned us around the centering of whiteness in the work of integration. We dig in to that, as well as discuss the power of language in this work. Taking on a few listener questions, we grapple with whether a school is ever “too bad” and whether our kids being “just fine” is good enough.
Check Out:
Despite Th...2019-03-1347 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 15 - Gifted, Talented and SegregatedDr. Allison Roda (Molloy College) joins us to discuss Gifted and Talented programs and segregation. Gifted programs (sometimes called G/T, GATE, TAG, etc) have long been criticized for serving a disproportionately large percentage of white and/or privileged students. Dr. Roda’s research looks at how access to these programs is often ‘gamed’ by white/privileged families. In this episode, we discuss this research along with the the perceived importance of the label of “gifted” (and the stigmas of not acquiring the label). We talk about the challenges that gifted programs create for educational justice and what Dr. Roda suggests w...2019-03-0640 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 14 - Kirkland on IntegrationA thought leader on educational justice, Dr. David Kirkland (NYU) joins us for a meta discussion around school integration. He shares a powerful vision of integration from a racial justice framework; it is one that is grounded in democratic participation and the sharing of resources and one that involves us all in the deliberation of what counts as knowledge, the language of curriculum, and the fundamental design of education.
Dr. Kirkland also encourages us to consider that integration is about fundamentally asking if we can organize our society in a different way, where our differences are seen as spaces that...2019-02-2755 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 13 - Hopes and Hazards of Dual LanguageDual Language programs are exploding in popularity across the country -- and particularly among white &/or privileged families in gentrifying communities. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Sofia Chaparro about her research following the establishment of one such program. Providing some overview of Dual Language issues, this conversation looks at the potential for these spaces as well as the ways in which things can go wrong.
LINKS:
Connor Williams on white families in bilingual schools.
The Washington Post on dual language and gentrification.
Dr. Chaparro's Research.
Let us know what you think of this episode, suggest future topics, or...2019-02-2046 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 12 - Whiteness vs Rightness: A Conversation on ColonizingIn this episode we're joined by Kelly from NYC to talk about how we as white &/or privileged families show up in integrating schools. What does ‘colonizing’ mean in this context and, most importantly, how can we be thoughtful about not centering whiteness? We dig in to some of the ways integration can go sideways because of how integrating parents see things as “right” when they are often just “white” (&/or privileged). And we talk, of course, about nachos.
LINKS:
Tema Okun on White Supremacy Culture
Wendy Mogul - The Blessing of a Skinned Knee
Let us know what you think of thi...2019-02-1351 min
The Integrated Schools PodcastEp 11 - White Women and the Politics of White SupremacyProfessor and author, Dr. Elizabeth McRae, discusses her new book - Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy. This is a compelling history of the everyday work that white women have undertaken to promote and reinforce racial segregation in America’s public schools. While legislation dominates the discourse, Dr. McRae reveals the many ways that white women have been segregation’s “constant gardeners”
We talk with Dr. McRae about what her research tells us about contemporary school segregation -- and the hope her work gives for it’s dismantling.
Let us know what you think of this ep...2019-02-0644 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 10 - Why My Choice Matters: Taking Back the PlaygroundWe're back! After a break over the holidays, we're kicking off Season 2 of the Integrated Schools Podcast with a basic question - why does one person's choice matter? What impact does your choice have for your kid, for your school, and for the system. We've got Denise from Santa Fe back, and we try to dig in - does your choice change anything? If so, for whom? Is it integration when we are talking about ONE kid? And if it moves the needle towards integration, why does that even matter?
It also brought up something we've heard in your feedback...2019-01-3045 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 9 - The Only One (Part 2): SMOGLast week we talked about the fear we often hear around your kid being the "Only One" from the perspective of parents with kids who are currently in that position. In this episode, we look at it a little differently. Andrew looks back on his experience as the Only One white kid in his elementary school in a conversation with Erin, who reflects upon her experiences as the Only One black kid in her schools. The discussion, as adults with the perspective of time, highlights the ways that race impacts that experience, and the ways that having been through that...2018-12-1942 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 8 - The Only One (Part 1): SMOGThe Smog - is all of the things that we hear and say about schools and parenting that push us towards greater segregation. "I don't want my kid to be the only one" is one of these. It's a tricky subject, so we're going to break it up into two parts. Part 1- today's episode - is from the perspective of parents with kids who are currently the Only One. It can be challenging to navigate. We talk with Lauren from Pennsylvania about the experience for her, her two kids, and her family. It's not always easy, but there are...2018-12-1242 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 7 - Vicky and The SaviorsGood intentions don’t always feel so good. In this episode, we talk with Vicky, a Mexican mom whose kids attend an integrated school in a gentrifying neighborhood. Vicky shares what it feels like to be “saved” by some of the white &/or privileged families at her kids’ schools (spoiler: not so great). Relationships are hard and trust takes time to build. And privilege, especially privilege unexamined, shows up in unexpected places.
If you're enjoying this podcast, please consider making a donation to Integrated Schools. We are a volunteer run organization with growing costs, and your support would mean the world to us...2018-12-0545 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastBONUS - An Update on Integrated SchoolsWe couldn't pull off a full episode this week, but we did want to update you on all the other things happening at Integrated Schools.
The Two Tour Pledge - sign on here.
Mapping of how White &/or Privileged Families Interact with School Integration - our video overview.
Parent to Parent Program - get connected with someone who is sending their kids to an integrating school.
Or, just visit our website.
If you're enjoying this podcast, please consider making a donation to Integrated Schools. We are a volunteer run organization with growing costs, and your support would mean the world...2018-11-2805 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 6 - The Hidden GemThere are lots of great schools without many white kids, however, when white parents start to integrate a global majority school because they think they've found a hidden gem, it can lead in some troubling directions. Anna from LA (you may remember her from Ep 1) joins us to discuss the problems that arise when we come to integration just looking for a hidden gem. We touch on the narrative around what makes a "good" school, and we discuss how the Hidden Gem story encourages resource hoarding and can pave the way for colonizing.
If you're enjoying this podcast, please consider...2018-11-2133 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 5 - Interview with a SkepticA lifelong activist and 20 year veteran of nonprofit work, Chris Stewart has served as the former Director of Outreach and External Affairs for Education Post, the Executive Director of the African American Leadership Forum (AALF), and an elected member of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education where he was radicalized by witnessing the many systemic inequities that hold our children back. He is the current chief executive of the Wayfinder Foundation, and an outspoken critic of many current integration efforts.
He and Courtney discuss the many ways that desegregation efforts can be thwarted, and the ways they can go...2018-11-1444 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 4 - Sacrificing on the Altar of Social Justice: SMOGThe Smog - is all of the things that we hear and say about schools, often without realizing the ways those things are racialized. “I don’t want to sacrifice my kid on the altar of social justice“ is just one of many. The podcast will occasionally feature smog-conversations; the only way the smog changes is if we engage with these ideas directly.
We're joined today by Denise from Santa Fe, who has been a key contributor to this podcast already, and who you'll be hearing more from in future episodes.
Let us know what you think of this episode, suggest futu...2018-11-0822 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 3 - Hagerman and the White KidsProfessor and author, Dr. Margaret Hagerman, discusses her new book - White Kids: Growing Up With Privilege in a Racially Divided America. Dr. Hagerman conducted an ethnography of a community in the mid-west. She spent two years living in a community and interviewing white, wealthy families and their middle school aged children on their ideas about race, education, privilege, etc.
We discuss her work, and what it tells us about the importance of the types of environments in which we raise our kids.
Let us know what you think of this episode, suggest future topics, or share your story with...2018-10-3051 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 2 - The Bordon FamilyWe're joined by the Bordon family - Jenny (mom), Scott (dad), and Olivia (10th grade). In choosing a school for their daughters, they started out following the narrative of how people with the privilege of choose a school should go about it. After a conversation with their school district about who has has that privilege and the segregation that results from it, they made a change and sent both of their kids to global majority schools. Many years later, they reflect on that journey and how it has shaped their understanding of race, class, privilege, and education.
We're sad to...2018-10-3043 minThe Integrated Schools PodcastEp 1 - Intro to The Integrated Schools PodcastWelcome to the Integrated Schools Podcast - Conversations about race, privilege, education, parenting and schools. This introduction gives an overview of Integrated Schools and what you can expect from this podcast.
Courtney from LA, Anna from LA, and Sarah from Houston talk about their experiences choosing integrated schools, why IntegratedSchools.org exists, and the importance of showing up in integrating spaces with humility, and awareness.
Let us know what you think of this episode, suggest future topics, or share your story with us - @integratedschls on twitter, IntegratedSchools on Facebook, or email us hello@integratedschools.org.
The Integrated Schools Podcast...2018-10-3039 min