ation are highly polarizing, as we’ve seen again in recent months. Integration efforts are often met with backlash as white (and now sometimes Asian) parents feel something is being taken from them.
In the past, that resistance has been allowed to quash efforts that we know are necessary for justice, and that can no longer be the case. We cannot wait to integrate our schools until we’ve assuaged the feelings of white liberals. That’s a hollow concept of justice, and we’d never do it. (I don’t mean this self-righteously. As someone who sent his kids to largely segregated elementary and middle schools, I’m guilty of this too. I say it simply as a matter of fact.)
Integration in our public schools is owed to students of color, and especially to black students, after centuries of inequality. And it is necessary if we intend the promises of the Constitution or the idea of “equal opportunity” to mean anything at all.
But that moral clarity does not resolve the political dilemma, because in a democracy, it’s necessary to build majoritarian support for serious change. At this moment in our history, we certainly can’t rely on the courts or the Justice Department to compel it. Amid tribalized politics, media, culture, and geography, it often feels the zeitgeist of the country is headed in the exact opposite direction of integration.
There’s little political leadership at the national, state, or local levels. Even the lightning-rod moment on the presidential debate stage, when Sen. Kamala Harris confronted Joe Biden over his opposition to busing, faded quickly when it became clear that Harris herself is not proposing large-scale integration programs.
But here’s the good news and maybe a hint at the solution: When we get past the polarized debate and make things happen, integrated classrooms aren’t just morally correct. They are delightful. And they might even change us for the better.
Every year, I make it a point to go to the fifth grade graduation at the Brooklyn New School, where it’s been practicing integration (through targeted admissions criteria that draw from across the district) for 25 years. The graduation takes place at 6 p.m. on a Friday evening, so all the families can attend, including those who can’t get off work. Instead of choosing a few students to speak, each class does a joyful dance/spoken-word performance that explores a theme they’ve been working on. The principal’s speech mentions every student by name, and you can tell they’ve been seen for who they are.
Surrounded by beaming families that really reflect our city, amid the joy of graduation, you can feel the bright promise not just of integrated public education, but of inclusive multiracial democracy. Most parents would be delighted to have their child graduate from a school like this.
On top of the educational benefits they offer, there’s good evidence that attending a diverse school can help reduce racial bias, that students who attend integrated schools are more likely to seek out integrated settings later in life, and that diversity results in more productive, effective, and creative teams.
It will take the hard work of principals, teachers, students, and families to achieve what the young leaders of IntegrateNYC, knowing that just moving bodies around is not enough by itself, call the “5 Rs of real integration.” But what we’re doing in the District 15 middle schools starting this fall offers the possibility of expanding opportunity to 10,000 middle school students over the next four years. I’m already looking forward to the eighth grade graduations in June of 2022.
There are lessons in how we made this decision as well. After parents and students pushed for change, the Department of Education put the resources forward for a nine-month community planning process, with dozens of meetings across the district.
We did not ask whether we would integrate; it was clear from the start that this was the goal. But we did take families’ concerns seriously: not just white parents’ anxiety about whether we would lose something we felt entitled to, but also Latino p