Hello all, here's the latest update on the District 15 Diversity Plan Process. You likely already know that the plan is now on the Chancellor's desk awaiting approval and implementation for the fall admission season. You can read the specifics of the plan here. It eliminates academic/behavioral/talent screening entirely, and creates structures for socioeconomic balance in all the district schools, along with supports for heterogeneous, non-tracked classrooms, among other things.
Please take a moment to send Chancellor Carranza a letter supporting the D15 plan. Use this form, but modify the letter as desired:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/support-district-15-middle-school-diversity-plan/
"But I don't live in D15," you say? Write anyway. The DOE has noted many times (including up top in the plan itself) that the D15 process is intended as a model for other districts.
You could suggest that DOE support other school districts in their own community engagement processes, and suggest that they explore engagement between districts to improve the process all around.
You could also explicitly name Whiteness in your letter. You could say that as a White person, you support the plan, and that you are working to convince other White people of the importance of integrating our schools.
The meeting Brad Lander held at the Brooklyn Public Library earlier this week gave parents an opportunity to air their concerns in small groups. I was there, and while it was not an angry mob by any stretch, there was tension in the room. I sensed the divide: there was a contingent that was clearly skeptical of the plan and anxious about its impact, but there were also many strong supporters. However, almost everyone in the room had one thing in common: Whiteness. I believe that Whiteness is the thing that must be named in this conversation, as it was named in this petition from the outset. Whiteness, along with:
1. the privilege it confers
2. the (often-unacknowledged) fear of losing that privilege that drives the decision-making process of so many White people, and
3. the power that White people who will take the time to talk frankly with other White people have to begin to undo the damage done by a deeply entrenched system of White supremacy in this country.
The meeting this week was exciting to me because the White parents who were disinclined to change the current admissions process and the White parents who are eager for the process to change were in conversation with each other, with DOE representatives listening and taking notes.
What those small-group conversations started to do was amplify the voices of the White parents who know that this plan is the right thing to do, who can speak to their personal commitment to integration, equity, justice -- however they want to frame it -- but also perhaps to the experience of being a White parent and sending their kid to an unscreened school or a majority Black and Brown school, or the "under the radar" school or whatever kinds of coding we might still be using to describe the school that is NOT that "coveted" school that "everyone" is reaching toward. Those White parents were breaking down the "good school" narrative, complicating it for the White parents voicing opposition to change. They were beginning to change minds by calming other White people's fears, and making a strong moral argument at the same time.
Even if these conversations don't ultimately change a given parent's mind, if our collective voice asks for change and gets it, and this plan is implemented, that means that more children will have an integrated middle school experience, and perhaps grow up more enlightened than we are. And wouldn't that be worth it?
Thank you for being a part of this important process toward real change.