The Integrated Schools Podcast

We’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 do. Between the pandemic and losing our founder a year ago, it was a much needed pause to take the 30,000 ft view of our work and how we view it fitting in to the broader movement for educational justice.

A framing that we have been thinking about, internally, is Third Wave School Desegregation. The idea that we have tried desegregation in the past, and, while it has had benefits, it has also had real costs. In order to move towards a true, multiracial demorcracy, we believe we need something new, something that hasn’t been tried before, and something that pushes us towards real integration.

We’re thrilled to be joined by Karla and Rachel from IntegrateNYC for this panel, as their 5Rs of Real Integration provide a powerful framework for thinking about real integration.

We’re including lots of links in an attempt to give credit to the origin of much of the ideas shared, but special thanks as well to the entire Integrated Schools team for helping to think through this question.

LINKS:

• Black Educators Initiative
• Urban Teachers
• Dr. Robert Simmons
• Integrate NYC
• IntegrateNYC on the Integrated Schools Podcast
• 5 Rs of Real Integration
• Dr. David Kirkland
• Justice Thurgood Marshall, Milliken v. Bradley, 1974 dissent
• Charles Hamilton Houston
• Dr. Vanessa Siddle Walker
• White Supremacy and Black Educational Excellence: Hidden Stories of the Integration Movement
• Dr. Noliwe Rooks
• Segrenomics, Black Teachers, and Noliwe Rooks
• Horace Tate
• Rucker Johnson – Children of The Dream
• EdBuild report, 23 Billion:
• Nikole Hannah-Jones – on “curated diversity“
• METCO
• Billingham and Hunt on White parent preferences for racial school makeup

Remember, any book bought through a link here or by starting at our affiliate page on IndieBound supports local bookstores, and Integrated Schools.

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

Let us know what you think of this episode, suggest future topics, or share your story with us – @integratedschls on twitter, IntegratedSchoolson Facebook, or email us [email protected].

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced, edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On 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 Epton, who has done all the visuals to promote these episodes, to Ali, Bridget, Anna, Susan and others, who provide feedback, and help me think through these topics, this podcast wouldn’t be what it is without the entire team. And that team deserves a break.

If you are able, we’d be eternally grateful for your financial support, by joining our Patreon, or going to the Integrated Schools website and clicking “donate.”

While we’re away, please check out past episodes, if you haven’t yet, and stay in touch on social media or by sending us an email.

And please, VOTE!!

LINKS:

• Past episodes 
• Register for Book Club
• Buy An Indigenous People’s History of the United States for Young People
• The first episode of the Brown v Board series, The Stories We Tell Ourselves
• The trailer for our series, Between We and They

Use these links or start at our Bookshop.org storefront to support local bookstores, and send a portion of the proceeds back to us.

Register for our upcoming bookclub in early December. We’re reading Mia Birdsong’sHow We Show Up.

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

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 [email protected].

We are a proud member of The Connectd Podcast Network.

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced, edited and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We 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 has documented in a new book, Just Schools: Building Equitable Collaborations with Family and Communities, Dr. Ishimaru highlights four key principals for empowering family and community to drive positive change in schools: Begin with Parents and Community; Transform Power; Build Reciprocity; and Undertake Change as Collective Inquiry.

She joins us to discuss these themes and more.

LINKS: 

• Dr. Ishimaru’s book – Just Schools: Building Equitable Collaborations with Family and Communities
• Tips for Collaborating with Other Families from Embrace Race
• Annette Lareau – on Racialized Scripts
• Nice White Parents – from Serial
• John Diamond and Amanda Lewis – Despite the Best Intentions
• Amanda Lewis on our podcast
• Erica Turner’s guide on Equity in Pandemic Schooling

Use these links or start at our Bookshop.org storefront to support local bookstores, and send a portion of the proceeds back to us.

Register for our upcoming bookclub in early December. We’re reading Mia Birdsong’sHow We Show Up.

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

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 [email protected].

We are a proud member of The Connectd Podcast Network.

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced by Andrew Lefkowits and Molly Wheeler. It was edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The 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 why it took congress 30 years to address growing school segregation.

LINKS:

• Congressman Scott's Website
• Strength in Diversity Act on Congress.gov
• Strength in Diversity Fact Sheet
• The Equity and Inclusion Enforcement Act on Congress.gov
• The Equity and Inclusion Enforcement Act Fact Sheet
• Tribute to Courtney Everts Mykytyn from the Official Congressional Record
• Milliken v Bradley from Integrated Schools
• The floor debate on the Strength in Diversity Act - 4h18m to 5h08m

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

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 [email protected].

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced, edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

For 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. Calling for us to recognize equity as moral imperative, equity as a potent antidote to inequality, and equity as the superior growth model for our country.

She joins us to talk about the power of an equity mindset, not just in education, but in our entire society.

 LINKS:

• PolicyLink
• The Equity Manifesto
• The Radical Imagination Podcast
• Ms. Glover Blackwell on The Curb-Cut Effect

Use these links or start at our Bookshop.org storefront to support local bookstores, and send a portion of the proceeds back to us.

Register for our upcoming bookclub in early December. We’re reading Mia Birdsong’sHow We Show Up.

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

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 [email protected].

We are a proud member of The Connectd Podcast Network.

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced by Andrew Lefkowits. It was edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Brooklyn 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 Ep 6, Mo’ Charters, Mo’ Problems, for tackling one of the most heated topics with a nuance that is often lacking).

Hosts Mark Winston Griffith and Max Freedman join us to discuss the project, and share an edit of Ep 7, New Kids on the Block. We talk about gentrification, colonization, rallying, and impact versus intent. If you’ve been listening to Nice White Parents, you’ll recognize many of the same themes.

LINKS:

• School Colors Podcast
• Brooklyn Deep
• The Brooklyn Movement Center

Use these links or start at our Bookshop.org storefront to support local bookstores, and send a portion of the proceeds back to us.

Register for our upcoming bookclub in early December. We’re reading Mia Birdsong’sHow We Show Up.

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

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 [email protected].

We are a proud member of The Connectd Podcast Network.

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced by Andrew Lefkowits. It was edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JPB 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 to be about “Pandemic Pods” and equity, but we quickly found ourselves zoomed out to a broader conversation about meritocracy, “THE SYSTEM”, and Black Lives Matter signs in gated communities. With insight, humor, and authenticity, JPB helps us think about what it means to take care of our kids in a way that doesn’t harm other kids.

LINKS: 

• Unstandardized English – JPB Gerald’s Podcast (and you can support his work on Patreon)
• The Ezel Project – JPB Gerald’s course on whiteness
• JPB on Twitter
• Combatting the Altruistic Shield – JPB Gerald’s article describing the concept
• JPB Gerald and Mira Debs on Pandemic Pods in The Washington Post
• Cheryl I. Harris – Whiteness as Property (1993)
• JPB was inspired by Nelson Flores and Jonathan Rosa who have written several pieces together, including Undoing Appropriateness, and Unsettling Race and Language

Use these links or start at our Bookshop.org storefront to support local bookstores, and send a portion of the proceeds back to us.

Register for our upcoming bookclub in early December. We’re reading Mia Birdsong’sHow We Show Up.

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

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 [email protected].

We are a proud member of The Connectd Podcast Network.

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced by Andrew Lefkowits. It was edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Dr. 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 also about justice and race in schools more broadly. Her 2015 book, Those Kids, Our Schools: Race and Reform in an American High School is an inside look at a racially and socioeconomically diverse high school in America. It explores the way students recreate existing racial hierarchies when not giving the time, space, and instruction for how to have productive conversations about race.

This work led her to co-author Race Dialogues: A Facilitator’s Guide to Tackling the Elephant in the Classroom which aims to give teachers (and others) the tools to facilitate more helpful and hopeful conversations.

LINKS:

• Dr. Griffin on Medium – including the three posts about COVID
• Dr. Griffin’s Those Kids, Our Schools: Race and Reform in an American High School
• Dr. Griffin’s Race Dialogues: A Facilitator’s Guide to Tackling the Elephant in the Classroom
• Race: The Power of an Illusion – documentary
• Clara Totenberg Green’s Op-Ed in the NYT
• JPB Gerald and Mira Debs’s Op-Ed in the Washington Post
• L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy’s thread on Twitter
• Courtney Martin and Garrett Bucks wrote letters to each other about pods
• Erica Turner created this guide to Equity in Pandemic Schooling
• Our own blog post about pods
• The newly updated resources page from our website
• The recording and resources from our first ever webinar
• And, in proof that everyone is talking about pods . . . this excellent piece from Good Housekeeping

Use these links or start at our Bookshop.org storefront to support local bookstores, and send a portion of the proceeds back to us.

Register for our upcoming bookclub in early December. We’re reading Mia Birdsong’sHow We Show Up.

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

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 [email protected].

We are a proud member of The Connectd Podcast Network.

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced by Andrew Lefkowits. It was edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

July 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 maintain all-White schools. The implications for ideas about what is possible regarding desegregation today, and how we fund schools are profound.

LINKS: 

• Parents Involved v Seattle Schools
• Milliken v Bradley
• Keyes v Denver School District 1
• Swann v Mecklenburg 
• Brown v Board of Ed
• EdBuild report on the $23 Billon funding gap
• Complete audio from the opinion, including the entirety of Justice Marshall’s dissent.

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further. We are an all volunteer organization and your support would mean the world to us.

Use these links or start at our Bookshop.org storefront to support local bookstores, and send a portion of the proceeds back to us.

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 [email protected].

We are a proud member of The Connectd Podcast Network.

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced by Andrew Lefkowits. It was edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We’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 achieve real integration, and work with the Department of Education (DOE) to enact policies that work towards that goal.

Karla and Jedidah walk us through all 5 Rs, while also sharing their own experiences being impacted by segregation. These youth leaders are passionate and inspiring, and remind us of the power of youth voice.

LINKS: 

• The 5Rs of Real Integration
• Green v. County School Board of New Kent County
• Will Stancil on the Green Case from The Atlantic

Use these links or start at our Bookshop.org storefront to support local bookstores, and send a portion of the proceeds back to us.

Register for our upcoming bookclub in early December. We’re reading Mia Birdsong’sHow We Show Up.

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

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 [email protected].

We are a proud member of The Connectd Podcast Network.

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced by Andrew Lefkowits. It was edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy