Last Wednesday, March 10th, FORJ and METCO presented a panel on “Segregation and Suburban Schools” featuring METCO leaders, historians, METCO student voices and families.  A recording of the panel is available here: Segregation and Suburban Schools: Panel Discussion.

If you’d like to read more about segregation and suburbs, including Newton, see the Boston Globe article here:   https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/12/11/opinion/massachusetts-public-schools-are-highly-segregated-its-time-we-treated-that-like-crisis-it-is/

Presenters, panelists and their work:

• Families Organizing for Racial Justice (job opening for a part-time paid role advancing race equity in Newton here—deadline extended)
• METCO (The Metropolitan Council for Education Opportunity)
• Needham Schools Equity Audit Report & Recommendations / Needham Diversity Initiative
• David Scharfenberg:
  • Massachusetts’ public schools are highly segregated. It’s time we treated that like the crisis it is
  • In Greater Boston, a lopsided geography of affordable housing
  • Miracle on the Mystic: Chelsea, Everett, and the New American Dream

 Mentioned in the panel conversation:

• Slides with data from METCO towns
• Commonwealth Fault Line — Policy for Progress
• The Benefits of Socioeconomically and Racially Integrated Schools and Classrooms
• Massachusetts State Senator Brendan Crighton recently introduced three new bills to promote integration across school districts:
  • SD2150 (a new study commission)
  • SD2162 (a school integration grants program)
  • SD2172 (linking school construction reimbursement to school integration efforts).
• Supporting Neighborhood Opportunity in Massachusetts (SNO Mass)
• Raj Chetty’s project: Creating Moves to Opportunity (CMTO)

Upcoming events:

• Saturday, March 13, 1pm – Stop Asian Hate Boston Rally.
• Sunday, March 21, 5:30PM – Fault Lines: Grappling With Segregation In Our Schools, At My Neighbors Table
• Wednesday, March 24, 6:30PM – METCO Presents: Hellfighter, Dialogues on Diversity
• Thursday, April 15, 6PM – Boston School Desegregation through the Rearview Mirror, Mass. Historical Society
• Monday, April 22, 12pm – The Impact of Increased Exposure to Diversity on Suburban Students’ Outcomes: An Analysis of the METCO Voluntary Desegregation Program

Further reading

• Recording of Newton event with Richard Rothstein: The Color of Law with Jared Johnson, Executive Director of Transit Matters, and Richard Evans on the devastating impact the building of the Mass Pike had on Newton’s historic African American community.
• CECR Demography Report counting “diverse” and segregated schools in MA over the last 12 years
• ‘YIMBY’ group wants more people of color to buy homes in Hingham / Hingham Unity Council
• Breakthroughbrookline.org: Free weekly email listings of antiracism events

FORJ (Families Organizing for Racial Justice) is a coalition of school-aged families in Newton coming together to teach our children – and ourselves – how to stand up for racial equality. Our Lincoln-Eliot FORJ contact is parent Lanni Isenberg: lanni_harris@yahoo.com