- An important point raised this week in this report from New York City: "When the School Building Itself is a Barrier to Equal Education." Lots and lots of our older buildings aren't accessible, and that limits the choices that some students can make.
- Utah is currently having a discussion worth keeping an eye on: should charter school organizations have the right to seize land through eminent domain?
- And speaking of charters, do be sure you read this exceedingly rare critique of Mystic Valley Charter School in the Globe from earlier this week.
- Some important reading about race this week: the federal Education Department scaling back civil rights investigations; a thoughtful piece about structural racism in the New Orleans public schools, even as Confederate statutes come down; white communities perpetual--and renewed!--push for their own schools; the need for examining unconscious bias and structural racism as we teach around social-emotional learning
- And also on race, but I want to give this its own bullet: this round up from Peter Piazza on school integration and the overwhelming evidence of its positive impacts, BUT:
But, in what is supposedly the age of data, the data on school integration is almost completely overlooked. We have solid evidence of its benefits, and we have over a century of evidence that “separate but equal” is harmful. In everything from the policies that are made to the everyday conversations about school integration, this doesn’t seem to matter. Decisions to segregate are made in the gut or maybe (sadly) in the heart, but not in the head. It touches core beliefs and unexamined social assumptions that are wrapped up in fears of being labeled a bad person or a bad parent.
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