S11E6 – Advocacy for Equitable Funding and Integration with Brown’s Promise

S11E6 - Advocacy for Equitable Funding and Integration with Brown's Promise

Andrew: Welcome to the Integrated Schools Podcast. I'm Andrew, a White dad from Denver.

Dr. Val: And I'm Val, a Black mom from North Carolina.

Andrew: And this is Advocacy for Equitable Funding and Integration with Brown's Promise. And Val, we are back to regularly scheduled programming. We spent last episode talking a lot about our reflections on the election. This is not a politics podcast. Of course, education is all about politics at the end of the day.

Dr. Val: That's right. We know that, in the time that this podcast has been around, we've lived under the conditions that have been happening in the world. Whether that was the pandemic, whether that was any politics or global issues that were going on, like, it's part of our experience. And so, listeners you know, that it's always on our mind what's happening in the world and what's happening in our country and what's happening locally. And, we're gonna do our very best to, to bring you programming that connects to that in some way.

Andrew: Absolutely. And today's episode is a good example of that. Um, we're gonna be talking about advocacy. We're gonna talk about funding and integration with the co-founders of an organization called Brown's Promise. It's actually a conversation we recorded before the election. So you may notice a slightly different, um, lightness in our voices perhaps in the conversation, [Val laughs] but still feels relevant as we're thinking about what the future might hold.

Dr. Val: Oh, absolutely! And so, we had the pleasure of meeting one of our guests during our first (and not last) live show. Where we knew we wanted to dig into this topic a little bit further. And so, you may have heard one of our guests before, if you had a chance to listen to our live show, if you haven't, go back and listen to it. It was amazing.

Andrew: That's right. Yeah. Saba Bireda is one of the co-founders of Brown's Promise. She was one of the panelists that we were so fortunate to speak with back in May at the Brown anniversary event. And, we're now circling back because there was so much that she brought up that felt really relevant and interesting to the work of school integration. And she's joined by her co-founder, Ary Amerikaner. They both started this organization called Brown's Promise a little over a year and a half ago. And Brown's Promise’s work came about because they, they both kind of recognized that there was this gap, that there were a lot of people who were trying to figure out how do we fund our schools more equitably? How do we get the resources to the kids who need them most? And then there were other people who were looking at how do we get kids into schools that are well resourced? And those people weren't really talking to each other. And so Brown's Promise was kind of born out of a desire to bring those two conversations together in one place.

Dr. Val: Absolutely. We aren't policy wonks here, but we talk to enough people who like to work with policy that I'm beginning to feel very smart! [Val laughs] But certainly we see the value of, you know moving in various lanes, right? And so that will be people powered, parent and caregiver powered, policy powered. So we know that lots of people working together on this issue, um, will only make it stronger.

Andrew: Yeah. Our lane is, you know, thinking about parents and caregivers and the advocacy work we can do, what choices we are making personally, because, you know, I, I still think that the best laid policies are often undermined by the most privileged people, and so we need to push back on that.

But, we often get people who get to a point of desegregating their kids, of integrating their families and then being ready to kind of lean into advocacy in their local communities, and I think Brown's Promise and some of the things that you'll hear from Ary and Saba, give some good direction on ways that that might be possible.

Dr. Val: Yeah, absolutely. Alright, let's take a listen.

[THEME MUSIC]

Ary Amerikaner: I'm Ary Amerikaner. I am the co-founder and executive director at Brown's Promise.

Saba Bireda: I'm Saba Bireda. I'm the co-founder and chief legal counsel at Brown’s Promise.

Andrew: Amazing. And, Brown's Promise, we're gonna talk about the work you do, but, you know, focused on fulfilling the promise of the Brown v Board decision. You both are deeply committed to school integration and educational equity. Why? What in your backgrounds, what in your upbringing brought you to care about this, to focus your life's work on this? Ary, do you wanna start us off?

Ary Amerikaner: Sure! I came to this, I think largely out of frustration, to be honest. I've been spending the last 15-ish years working on education equity issues, and particularly with a focus on school funding issues and trying to make our school funding formulas more fair and more designed to actually meet the needs of the students who we’re all allegedly here to serve.

And, we've made progress in our country over time to make sort of fairer funding formulas and fairer allocation of dollars, but we are nowhere close, anywhere in the country, to actually doing funding equity in the way that we would need to, according to research, to really provide equal educational opportunities for all kids.

And I started just being like, “Why? Like, why can't we get there?” Like, there are so many people trying to work on this and what is going on? And I've come to really just deeply believe that all of us in the funding equity world who spend every day thinking, like, let's get more money in schools and districts serving high concentrations of students living in poverty, or high concentrations of students of color who have been so historically under invested in for so long. Every day that we do that is a good day, but if we ignore the reasons that we have that concentration of poverty in our schools and the reasons that we have that racial isolation in our schools, we're never gonna actually crack this nut. We're gonna never actually solve this problem.

And so I started thinking, like, we gotta, we gotta talk about both of these things together, the policies and the lines that we draw to create these segregated environments, and then on top of that, and very intentionally underfund in those environments. So, that's how I came to this work, was like trying to understand why we weren't making the progress I was trying to make on just focusing on school funding and resource allocation issues.

Andrew: Yeah, go back one step, why do you care about that? What, in your background, like, who poured that into you? Why did you come to care about that?

Ary Amerikaner: Yeah, I grew up in West Virginia. I grew up in a part of West Virginia that is by comparison relatively better resourced than other places in West Virginia, although it's a state that has very high poverty across the board. And I had some early experiences internalizing the differences and opportunities that were available to girls that I knew in schools not very far away. And just one of them saying to me, I had a, I had a teacher tell me, “Why do you keep coming to school? You're just gonna get pregnant and drop out.” And that was a sort of a shaping experience for me that, like….It was just like, no one was gonna say that to me. And I was like, why? Why? You know? And so that was one of the many reasons. My mom teaches education. She was a teacher. Um, education kind of runs in our family as well.

Andrew: There's always, there's always a mom! Every conversation we have, somebody's like, “Oh yeah, well actually my mom was–”

Ary Amerikaner: Also that! [laughs]

Andrew: Yep. Saba, how about you? What's your story? How did you come to this work?

Saba Bireda: Yeah! So like Val, I am from the great state of Florida. Not so great, sometimes. And my mom grew up in segregated schools in Florida. She had to travel 50 miles to go to high school. Just ridiculous. And so she was pretty determined that her kids would not go through the same thing. So, I was growing up in Tampa, in Hillsborough County, and they were actually under a deseg order. But at the time, even the, like, schools in my neighborhood that were under the order were majority Black and under-resourced. And she got us into an out of boundary program, which allowed us to go to the Whitest and wealthiest schools in Tampa. So starting for my brother in sixth grade and for me in kindergarten, um,

Andrew: Oh wow.

Saba Bireda: Yeah, I went to schools that were predominantly White and wealthy. And it was just never lost on me that I was having a radically different educational experience than the kids in my neighborhood. I traveled 30 minutes every day to go to school. That was a really difficult experience. I talk about it a lot. Um, I, it's the south and the 80’s. Like, you can imagine all the bad things that happened to me–

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Saba Bireda: –that being called the N word and feeling isolated, and told I wasn't smart by teachers, all the things.

But I was put on a path that was, one, that led me to Stanford and Harvard Law School. And I definitely, throughout that experience of Stanford and Harvard often thought, like, I wonder what happened to like my next door neighbor. Uh, I don't, I don't know that they arrived in the same place as me. And it was a cost to my self and to my family, but my mother often to this day says it was a cost that she was willing to pay. And she often looks at me and says, like, “Look at where it got you!” Right? Like, that's, that's, I was willing to do that.

And I came to this work being like, no parent should have to make that choice, right? Like, we shouldn’t have to put our children in circumstances where they feel isolated, and unappreciated, and under-valued in order for them to get an education that is as good as the one across town. So that's really what fueled my interest in education and equality. So, yeah! That's how I got here.

Dr. Val: Saba, would you, knowing your own experience in school, would you put a young person that you love in that similar experience? Your mother said it was worth it for her, but would you repeat that choice?

Saba Bireda: Yeah, I get asked that a lot. I have a child, um, and I would not put him in that exact same experience. Uh, he is in a school that is predominantly White, and that is not what I foresaw for him. Um, it is a more diverse school than I went to and a school that appreciates diversity and talks about it and has diverse teachers. But we're already seeing, you know, some of the challenges that I had in my own life. So, yeah.

Dr. Val: Yeah. It is hard and I do struggle with knowing that it feels like it's feast or famine when it comes to our community. You know? And you have to sacrifice something.

Ary, I think I approached much of my activism work, “Like, what? This is easy! Why, why is this difficult to fix?” [Val laughs] Right? Like, clearly there's funding inequity. This is a choice. Why don't we just fix it? So, talk a little bit about when you came to that revelation that, “Okay, maybe I've been seeing this wrong.” Like, how did that feel to you and how did you like, change your approach as a result?

Ary Amerikaner: So I think about two moments that were helpful in that realization. I'm a people person, so all of my learning comes through conversation and learning from other people. And so one of them was with a friend and colleague named Rebecca Sebilia who at the time I think was running Ed Build and it has now started a whole new thing called Ed Fund.

And she was just, like, Ary, “the electoral math will never work.” Like, the way we draw state legislative district boundaries and the, the way that overlaps with the way we draw school district boundaries means that no state legislative body will ever vote to spend two to three times as much money in a high poverty school district than all the rest of the state, because too many people would have to vote to spend far more money in a place that is not their constituents because of the way we draw the combination of school district lines and state legislative lines.

Andrew: The idea is, like, we could in theory, have segregated schools that were at least academically providing the education that kids would need, but the cost to that is so monumental. That to actually do that in a way that achieve the goals, you're spending two or three or four times as much money in places that have the highest needs. And there is nowhere that would actually allocate that money in that way to achieve that.

Ary Amerikaner: Yeah. Like, I mean fundamentally is it possible to provide essentially separate but equal schools? Like, sure, I guess, in theory. If that were your policy goal, particularly separate, not just by race and ethnicity, but more and more, I'm thinking about by income, right? Like if you wanted to have, the districts that we have today where in many states that we look at across the country, you have an extraordinarily high poverty district directly sharing a border with a much wealthier district. And we're talking about a 15 minute total drive time across the two districts. If you wanted to keep that kind of segregation and provide an equal educational opportunity, I suppose it's possible.

It's really, really hard to do good research on this, so I don't wanna, like, overstate what we know to be true. But the, the best available research shows that you would need to spend two to three times as much per student in a very high concentration poverty district to get to equal educational opportunities and outcomes for those kids. And if you think about school funding formulas around the country, nobody is close to actually spending two to three times as much in their highest poverty districts. It's just, like, not happening.

My other moment was with Saba. Saba, I, suspect you remember this conversation too, but we were having dinner outside during Covid at some point, and she and I were talking about this work. And we were just both expressing our frustration. And we were saying what would it take to, like, really actually achieve the kind of transformation that we want to see in our schools? What would it take to give more kids the better version of what I had? A better version of what I had is what we're trying to accomplish. And Saba saying that somehow for me, was an unlocking of, like, oh, right, we have to think about where kids go to school. And the integration part as part of the access to high quality schools.

And so, then we started Brown's Promise! I mean we really changed fundamentally the way we do our work, right? We were, like, this is crazy. Like, we can't keep having, like, a whole group of people over here talking about school funding and a whole group of people over here talking about school integration. Like, we have to start to know each other and work together and part of it is relationship building and trust building amongst people who haven't always known each other or talked to each other.

Andrew: Yeah. Saba, tell us a story of how the two of you met and how you ended up in that conversation, outside during Covid, having dinner, trying to solve the world's problems.

Saba Bireda: We both were at the Department of Education during the Obama Administration. I was in the Office for Civil Rights and Ary was in the policy shop. And our portfolios overlapped because Ary was working on resource inequity, like what federal programs could we be using to close resource inequities. And part of my portfolio in OCR was both our diversity work, so how do we support districts and schools in diversifying, but also, like, how do we think about these resource gaps? So it was a nice intersection.

Andrew: So that led to the creation of Brown's Promise, setting out to close this gap between talking about funding, talking about who goes to school where, and saying, like, “Okay, we have resources, we want to get them more equally distributed. We have kids, we want to get them more equally distributed. How do we come together and talk about this?” What's the mission of Brown's Promise and what hole is it trying to fill?

Ary Amerikaner: Well, we are trying to advocate for well-resourced, integrated public schools that really work for everybody. So, we are trying to fill a niche that is bringing together the longtime school funding people, bringing together longtime integration people. And I would say the third leg of that stool is really ensuring that we're focusing on student experience through all of that. Because people who think about systems, like funding and school integration and how we assign kids and resources to schools, are not always the best at thinking about how it actually feels for students. Not always the best at thinking about what it's like on a day-to-day basis. So we're trying to make sure that we bring together all three of those pieces in all of our work.

So that's the, like, highest level theory of action is that if we can adequately resource all of our schools we're gonna meet less resistance to integration efforts. And if we can integrate our schools, we're gonna be more likely to adequately resource them. Then it can be a positive sort of upward cycle. If we can start to gain traction and keep our eyes on both of those pieces simultaneously.

Dr. Val: Yeah. You know, my kids go to our, our neighborhood public school and I'm always asking them, “Do you have White kids in class?” I'm like, Yes! You have some White kids. [Laugher] That's good.! Like, the school won't get closed! Right? Like, people will continue to care. That's awful. It's true. Forgive me.

So, something that I think about often as, um, a mother of two high schoolers, and feeling like I'm about to age out of this, is how do we capture the audience that do not have children in school? Like, how do we make them care about this particular issue? Right? Everyone plays a role here. How have you all thought about engaging that group, which is going to be a larger percent of the population who have the voting power, but might not have any vested interest they believe in what is happening.

Ary Amerikaner: This is a challenge from all of all education issues. It's not specific to integration or funding, although it's particularly hyper-hard with funding, right? Because that's where, you know, people are like, “I don't wanna increase my tax dollars to support public schools if I don't have a kid in public schools.” So, yeah, it's an age-old problem. I mean, we did some message testing earlier this year and one of the things that we found is that people around the country, regardless of geography or race or ethnicity or age, find it very compelling to say we need to prepare students for the increasingly diverse workplaces that they're going to be in in the future.

And I think that message resonates for anyone who has ever worked. Anyone who cares about our sort of national economy. You can come at that from a perspective of what's good for my own individual student, but you can also come at it from a perspective of, like, “How do we ensure we have a thriving economy?” Like, workplaces that work.

And then what we sometimes talk about it as democracy, right? It depends on who we're talking to, but like some people find the most compelling ‘why’ to be about investing in a healthy, thriving, multiracial democracy, which I know you all know, you talk about this all the time. But that's perhaps the message for some people. Although I will say we found that the preparation for a diverse economy and workplace was more compelling for more people than the– than the democracy piece. Although they're both research backed and, and accurate and right. Obviously.

Andrew: Right.

Saba Bireda: I'll just add, I did employment law when I left the administration, and you would not believe how many employment law issues come from exactly what Ary just said. Like, someone has never worked with a person of color and they say something incredibly insensitive, or make incredibly insensitive jokes, and that leads to a lawsuit. Like, an actual lawsuit. Uh.

Andrew: Right.

Saba Bireda: Or, you know, my work, I think I've done at the higher ed level, where we see, you know, friction from kids who have come from predominantly White and predominantly Black high schools interacting for the first time. And so we–

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Saba Bireda: –get friction there. So it's really like an issue of both economic interest, educational interest. Like, I think there is actually some self-interest that people should have in this issue.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Andrew: Let’s talk about the work of Brown's Promise. When did it launch?

Ary Amerikaner: I think we technically say April of last year. So a year and a half. I mean we were, Saba and I have been working on it since before then, but….

Andrew: Right. That’s amazing. You have done so much work in a year and a half! It's incredible. But let's talk about some of the high level pieces of the work that you are engaging in. What are the kind of buckets that that falls into?

Saba Bireda: So there's three existing state court cases that are challenging segregation within states and arguing that the state has a responsibility to desegregate schools, which is a really new and interesting way of attacking desegregation. That's in New Jersey, New York and Minnesota. So, as we were preparing to start Brown's Promise, we were paying attention to the fact that those cases were up and running, and very much wanted to replicate those cases.

Each state has a state constitution that has an education clause. Every state has one, varying levels of, of detail, and in each of those lawsuits, the plaintiffs are arguing that the state is failing on its constitutional obligation to provide, you know, an adequate, or an efficient, whatever word is in the Constitution, education because of the existence of segregated schools.

Andrew: Right.

Saba Bireda: So, we'd like to do similar lawsuits using state law. And so I have been spending a lot of time thinking about how we would put together those cases in particular states. Which has then led to a realization that we needed to really build, a real kind of a community organizing infrastructure in, in the states that we would like to bring a lawsuit. And that's because, as good movement lawyer, trained lawyers, we know that communities should really be driving litigation. We don't–

Andrew: Right.

Saba Bireda: We don't wanna file litigation that people aren't, aren't interested in! And all three of those lawsuits have interesting stories of how they, they came to be. I'll just cite the New York City case, Integrate NYC's case, where they just, you know, spent years talking to young people about their experiences in segregated New York City high schools. And that's, that's what led to them filing that lawsuit.

So we're, we're doing that work now. That's what our director of Policy and Advocacy, Stephen Owens, is really concentrating on is, having community engagement sessions in several states, where we are learning about the experiences of students and communities of color, their educational experiences. We're talking about inequities between school districts, and we're asking communities, how would you like to see this fixed? You know, what would you like to see done about this? And we're hoping from that to really draw direction on whether or not litigation is a path that these communities would like to go down.

Andrew: This is state focused. I'm guessing there is not much hope of national level litigation being successful given the current state of the Supreme Court.

Saba Bireda: Yeah. There's not a lot of room in this space. And so we do see a potential for litigation being a solution more under state law.

Andrew: Yeah. Ary, what else? Uh, what are the other buckets?

Ary Amerikaner: Yeah. So Saba and Steven are doing that sort of most important, state specific, bucket of work. But we are also doing the broader work of trying to connect people. So we think about that as sort of our field-building work. So we've launched a community of practice and we have hosted one convening, we'll host another one next year. We're doing sort of virtual and in-person, networking with a purpose, we are building things together with that group.

But largely, honestly, the goal is to just build relationships. Build trust, build a field that believes in this idea of both/and, of integration and funding reform and resource equity in, in education across the country. And so, that is a really fun mix of people. It's, like, academics and researchers, but also litigators and also, policy advocates and like student facing organizations. So it's a fun sort of mix of a whole bunch of different kinds of people, uh, which is great. So that's one, one bucket of work we're doing.

Another bucket is creating solutions and research. So creating new knowledge essentially. We put out a state policy agenda a couple of months ago that we built, hand in glove, really with that community of practice that I was just talking about. So, it’s a Brown's Promise product. So all, all errors are ours, but all the brilliance of that group of people was sort of instrumental in creating that document. And we created it because frankly we kept getting people to say like, “Okay, okay, we kinda understand the problem.”

Andrew: “What should I do about it?”

Ary Amerikaner: What do I do about it? What do you, “Okay, you're gonna sue somebody and you're maybe, what if you win? What do you want?” And so, this was our attempt to start to flush out the answers to that question. So what are the buckets of things we want and full and fair funding? Rethinking district lines, making sure there's integration and resource equity within the districts. Keeping focus on student experiences. What does that look like and mean and feel like? So we tried to outline all of those things. What are the sort of unsexy policy changes we need about data reform and accountability system reform, and, like, what are the sort of ecosystem things we need to change? So we tried to lay all that out in a document we released this past summer.

We've also done some work on like, a research agenda to try to both acknowledge that there's a ton of research out there, like, this work is all grounded very much in evidence and research. We know integration matters and is good for kids. We know school funding matters and is good for kids. But, but what do we not know about the intersections of those things? And let's be honest about where we need to update the research. Or where we need to ask new questions and make sure that we really understand how to do this work well.

And so that, again, was a product of this community of practice where we worked with them to outline what are the research questions we still need to answer. And we are hoping that now to turn to actually answering those questions. We are not academic researchers. We can't answer those questions ourselves, but to partner with people in the field who, who can and are excited about that.

And then the last bucket of work is our, sort of, communications work, right? So we are just honestly trying to change the narrative. Like trying to bring back a conversation of, as you all know, better than we do, about school integration, but particularly school integration as a part of a resource equity conversation.

So, like, the world I come from is full of really smart, really well-meaning, really hardworking education equity advocates who are focused on school funding, are focused on teacher diversity, are focused on social emotional learning and school climate. All things that are really, really important. But for the most part, they're not talking about segregation or integration or patterns of, of where kids go to school and what that does to all of the issues they care about. And so we're, we're literally just out trying a lot to get people who are thought leaders, doers, policy makers to realize that these are interconnected issues. And so, a lot of our work is like being on stages, being in meetings, trying to just reintroduce this kind of conversation to the sort of mainstream education equity world.

Dr. Val: We know that historically, students played various roles in their own efforts to integrate school. Whether that was working with their teachers around organizing protests. Whether that was being volunteered by their parents to integrate a school. What do you think today's student's role is in this effort?

Ary Amerikaner: It's a good question. I was just at a community engagement session in Holyoke that was co-hosted with us by Polente, which is a youth organization in Holyoke. And it was, it was so fun. It was awesome. It was 25 high school students, from around the area. And they were the ones facilitating the table conversations. They were both asking and answering the questions. You know, I was just sitting and, like, typing basically, and taking notes.

I mean, that's not entirely true. We did some of the framing and the opening, but, like, and we created posters and stuff for them to engage with. But we were really hearing and learning from them. So, I happened to be fresh off of that and excited about the power of student voice and student leadership.

And so, clearly we wanna hear from them and we want their experiences to be the “why” for the work. And also we want their ideas to inform the solutions of the work. And I will say in all honesty, that I think sometimes there's a movement in the education world to, it's almost like fetishization or something, of this idea that student voice is the end all, be all in everything that we do. And, like, students absolutely should be lead, big voices in this work, and they haven't been trained in policy making.

Andrew: Right.

Ary Amerikaner: Or how their state government works, in the way that would require, like, to understand a state funding formula, how and why we've drawn the district lines the way we have, I think it is sometimes unfair. We tokenize people and we see this happen with educators in policy making sometimes too. Like asking classroom teachers to, to somehow be an expert in a school funding formula. It's very hard to do it well, I would say. So, like, we are constantly striving to figure out the right way to have meaningful student leadership and not, like, tokenized or sort of cheapened student leadership.

Andrew: Or, like, push off our responsibility. Because I feel like the extreme versions, one is that “We don't include students at all.” And one is like, “Well let the kids figure it out. Like, student voice should lead. So I don't know, they'll probably figure it out.” And then, right, if you don't provide that support, if you don't provide that scaffolding and the knowledge base that is actually important to actually change things, then yeah, we've just sort of, like, abdicated our own responsibility.

Dr. Val: Yeah, Ary thinking about my own schooling experience and I've shared on the podcast my all Black high school was surrounded by a barbed wire fence. I thought that was very normal. I mean, why else would it be there if it wasn't normal? And it wasn't until I got to college and I learned from my peers that they had different experiences in high school. And I remember feeling very angry, like, with adults for not telling me or not explaining this. And so, if you would've asked me in high school what I thought, I'd be like, it's normal. You know? It's fine. I don't, I don't know what I'm missing.

And so I think your point around like, how do we educate our young people so that they can be informed in the ways in which they join the conversation feels really important. So, I'm excited that you were with your student group who clearly have had a leader, you know, around them to help them understand the issues and thus engage in it in a way that doesn’t feel like they're being tokenized. But just really explains to them, like, here is the situation. And I don't think we have enough brave adults to do that with our young people, unfortunately.

Ary Amerikaner: Yeah, and it's so important because they're the ones who often get it more instinctively, intuitively than the adults once they have that background information, you know? There's so much power in that, in that kind of clarity of vision that kids have.

Dr. Val: Yeah.

Andrew: I think the other idea of kind of centering student voice where it feels really relevant is to your point, Saba, about like, what is the student experience there? Because,

Dr. Val: Mm-hmm.

Andrew: you don't want a system that recreates the educational experience that you had, right? Like, we want a system that gives kids the opportunities you had without the costs that come along with that. Can you talk a little bit more about this vision? In our live show back in May, you talked about kinda the problems with integration 1.0. We have talked about like, the need for third wave school desegregation. What does it look like to do this in a better way? To do this, in a way that deals with the resource thing honestly, but also takes seriously the student experience piece?

Saba Bireda: Yeah. I mean, when I think about what makes students feel welcome and comfortable and, and valued, I think one piece of it is the adults in the school. Like, we have to have diverse teaching staffs, which is a–

Andrew: Yep.

Saba Bireda: –we all know was a big challenge from integration 1.0 that hundreds and thousands of Black teachers lost their jobs, principals. So I think that's a core part of the new vision we should have for desegregated schools.

I think the other really important piece, like, the message that I always got was the schools in my community were not good. The schools where most of the kids look like me, and I had to go to the White community to be in a “good school.” And like we have to break that connection! And we have to make it really clear to children that that's not what's happening. And so part of that is like how we think about movement, that it cannot just be kids of color moving to predominantly White spaces. That is what happens when we do that, right? That is the connection that kids put together in their minds.

And, I know Ary is in Hartford right now. Like the idea of, of middle class, White students going into urban spaces and being, like, this is a good school and it has lots of kids of color, is really important. Like that is an important–

Andrew: Right.

Saba Bireda: –thing for everyone to feel. And then I guess I would say the last piece is the actual curriculum and the actual education that kids are getting. I wrote a letter to the editor that was published in the St. Pete Times after Florida got rid of its AP African American Studies curriculum where I said at my excellent Florida High School, I had never read a person of color. I went to Stanford University and I had never read–

Andrew: Hmm.

Saba Bireda: –a book by a person of color. Like that is just ridiculous.

Dr. Val: Are you serious?

Saba Bireda: I'm serious, I think, I think my English teacher, like, slipped me a copy of Beloved, but, like, it wasn't really on the curriculum. And so, like, that's the one I read! But, like–

Dr. Val: Oh my goodness!

Saba Bireda: That is, you are not training children to be successful anywhere you know, if your curriculum is so direly lacking–

Dr. Val: Yeah.

Saba Bireda: –in the full American experience. And so, I do think there actually has to be a pretty concentrated focus on, like, what we were actually teaching kids and how we're teaching kids about the American experience. That it is a diverse experience of which people of color have played a large part.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: I'm sorry. I'm sure you've read plenty by now.

Saba Bireda: Beloved was excellent. [everyone laughs]

Andrew: Yeah. I mean, if you, if you had to have just one, that's not a bad, that's not a bad, bad place to go.

Our audience is largely parents and caregivers. We've talked a lot about the policy work that needs to happen. We think that policy work is important and should be happening, and we know that particularly White parents and privileged parents have undermined well-intended policy all along the way, every step of, of our country's desegregation journey.

What role do you see in your work for parents, for caregivers, and we've talked a little bit about student voice, but for our listeners, what should they be doing? How do they get involved and care about this work that you all are doing?

Saba Bireda: One thing that we do a lot in our community engagement sessions is actual information sharing. We put up on the walls, these slides that show the inequities between the district that we're in and, and neighboring, often Whiter and wealthier districts. And it's so empowering for people in the room to just, like, see it, see the data.

And so I think that's one piece for parents. Like, all of this is actually pretty available data. You can see what the per pupil expenditure is between schools in your own district and other districts. You can see the differences in student population. You can see the differences in teacher experience. You can see the differences in “college ready” coursework. You can see the differences in discipline rates.

And so I think one piece is just open your eyes to the research that, that is out there. And, I, I'm a busy parent. I understand that, it, you know, there's not a lot of time in the day, but that is one piece of just like understanding the problem.

The other piece that I will say is, and this is, very much where I think parents like me, is being open to these ideas, right? Like, “What might it look like if my kid has to go 15 minutes to school, but gets the experience of being in a more diverse school environment?” I think it's like a, a, you know, personal question parents can ask themselves of, like, “Am I willing to do some sacrifice to make sure that my child has, has this experience and to make sure that our community is stronger, with the presence of more diverse schools.”

Ary Amerikaner: And I do think an important thing about what Saba just said is, like, the question about sacrifice. I think people often think about it as, like, “sacrificing” their kids' future, which is not right. Like, but it is sometimes a sacrifice as an adult. Like I'm a parent as well and I have kids in two different elementary schools because of the way things worked out, and that is a personal sacrifice in a way that is, like, it is harder logistically for us, but we have the means and the ability to do that. And so, we are doing it. And I think it is important to differentiate that from like, thinking about it being a “sacrifice” for your kid, 'cause it's a huge benefit for your kid, as you all are the best experts on talking about.

One other idea for parents is to just get really emboldened about asking good questions. Like, it's true that you can find a lot of these data points out there, but sometimes it's quite hard to find them, to navigate the websites. And, like, you should absolutely feel confident going and asking either in a public school board meeting or in a private meeting, asking for a meeting with the superintendent or the assistant superintendent, whoever you can get to, and saying like, “Can you show me a chart?” “Can you show me, like, all the elementary schools in my district and what percentage of students are experiencing poverty in those elementary schools?”

And if you look at it and it's, like, on this school and this school, it's 5%, and on this school and this school, it's 85%. Like, why? Why? why, how does that make sense?And then what are you doing to meet the additional needs in that 85% school? Show me how much money you're spending per student in each of those schools. Are you spending six times the amount of money in this school to meet the six times as much poverty?

And like, what do the teachers look like? Like how, how many novice teachers? How many long-term subs in that school versus that school? Just go ask a whole bunch of these questions about both like where you're assigning kids to schools, and then how you are resourcing to meet those needs, or not, as the case may be. And I think just like having those conversations can be an incredibly powerful starting point.

Andrew: I love that.

Dr. Val: I love that too.

Andrew: Just, to wrap up , Val and I certainly believe like Val says this on the podcast all the time, the only way we win is together. We come together in this sort of cross-racial friendship and dialogue every couple weeks to release a podcast conversation about it.

The two of you have this beautiful cross-racial friendship that has led to the creation of this work. What do we achieve if, if we get this right? If we can actually fulfill Brown's promise, what does the world look like? What's the ultimate vision of success?

Ary Amerikaner: I mean, we have classrooms across the country where little tiny, cute five year olds are hanging out together, and big awkward 18 year olds are talking to each other, and are friends with each other, and understand each other.

And frankly have, have made a lot of mistakes along the way. Have said some stupid stuff to each other along the way and have, like, figured it out. Before it becomes a lawsuit, before it becomes done in the context where you're an adult and the shame takes over and you don’t know how to undo it. You don't know how to fix it 'cause you're just a kid. And kids are, I mean, my kids say the craziest things to me that they have said to each other in elementary school right now, and it's all just part of being a kid, and it feels normal.

And so, I think giving people the opportunity to have this be part of, “this” meaning, like, cross-racial, cross-cultural, cross-linguistic experiences, just be normal and be part of the world. Like, think how much better our kids would be able to roll their sleeves up and do real work together to make the world a better place, if they weren't starting from zero on that when they got to the workplace.

Andrew: Totally..

Saba Bireda: I'll come at it from the resource perspective. Um, I taught for two years in southeast DC at an incredibly under-resourced school. And like many teachers will say, my kids were brilliant and they didn't have a chance to have what they should have had in this world.

They had so much potential and I knew even at seventh and eighth grade that most of them just would not have been given the resources they needed to realize their full potential. And there were scientists, and novelists, and doctors, and engineers, in that room that we'll never get to realize the potential of. And, like, that is fundamentally unfair and unjust in this country. And I don't see how we continue running a public education system, knowing that that is how many kids we have just, like, not even given a chance.

Um, and so to me, like this is a pathway to getting that chance for, for my students, the students that we continually are failing by not giving them an opportunity to go to well-resourced integrated schools.

Andrew: Beautiful. Thank you both for taking the time. Thank you for your work.

Dr. Val: Thank you.

Andrew: It's important work. You have done so much in a mere 18 months. I really can't believe it! Keep up the good work and thanks for coming on the show.

Saba Bireda: Thank you

Ary Amerikaner: Thank you all.

[THEME MUSIC]

Andrew: So, Val, what did you think?

Dr. Val: I love the episodes that really get me thinking about how we actually make change. And I was really thinking about their theory of action. If we can adequately resource all of our schools, we're going to meet less resistance to integration efforts. And if we can integrate our schools, we're gonna be more likely to adequately resource them.

And I shared during the interview that, you know, one thing that I do, um, is that I look to see how diverse my kids' school is. Specifically, are there White students there? I think that's, again, a horrible reality that I know that if White students are in the building, there's a higher chance that the school will be considered a value to the community. Right?

Not something that I, I love to admit, but I certainly feel like that has been demonstrated to us, over and over and over again. It really got me wondering honestly, like, that first part of that theory of action: If we can adequately resource all of our schools, we're gonna meet less resistance to integration. I wanna believe that's true.

And I think I'm wrestling with that, just a little bit. Only because there's lots of opportunities for us to be integrated spaces, but it's still not always the case. We have an opportunity to be neighbors with one another, but we don't often choose that.

And so I, I do wonder if, if the schools are funded equally, if that will be enough, or if there is still going to be a desire for some groups to feel like better than other folks. Right?

Andrew: Maybe both of those things are true, to a point.

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Andrew: Certainly the way that we have historically disinvested in schools that are predominantly filled with Black and Brown kids makes them less desirable. And so, you can imagine that if those schools had more resources, they would not be quite so undesirable.

But I don't think that gets you to actually integration. You know? I don't think that even really gets you to desegregation. Because, I mean, it comes, I, Heather McGee, who always comes, who always comes back to my mind, like, it comes back to this “zero-sum” mindset that we don't want good education, we want better than education. It doesn't actually matter if our kid is getting a good education, what matters is, are they getting “better than” the other kids? Are they getting a quote, unquote leg up? Are they getting the, you know, competitive advantage? And I think we will always find ways to use race as a proxy to identify that.

And so, you know, I think there is an inherent benefit in more equitable resource distribution in that it is pouring resources into kids who deserve resources. So, like, we need to be doing that no matter what. And I think there's probably limits to how much that by itself actually solves the segregation issue that we have.

Dr. Val: Yeah. And, and, and I find myself, like, feeling more comfortable with the second half of um, theory of action. That if we can integrate our schools, we're gonna be more likely to adequately resource them. And I think that's what I'm looking for when I drop my kids off at school. Right?

Andrew: Yeah. I mean, that's what Saba said in the live show, right?, “Green Follows White.” That, that got such a reaction out of you, right? [Val laughs] Money follows White kids, and it always has in education. And it's–

Dr. Val: I forgot she said that! Oh my gosh.

Andrew: I like, I wanna live in a world where that's not true and yet, like you said earlier, right? all indication is that that is, that is the way things currently work. And so, what I appreciate about Brown’s Promise is that they are not giving up on trying to work against that, right? Trying to create a world in which green doesn't follow White, but also recognizing the reality that the more integrated our schools become, the easier it is to start dealing with some of these resource issues.

Dr. Val: Yeah. I think that connects to our work, specifically in terms of us trying to really push people in their hearts and minds and behaviors. Because I think it's still valuable that we are together even if there's no green there. [Val chuckles]

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Val: Like, obviously we want well-resourced communities and schools, but certainly, like, it shouldn't just be because we'll have good financial resources. It's because we see the inherent value of each other, and our perspectives, and what we can bring to the world, and what we can build together. Look at me sounding hopeful. In late November.

[Laughter]

Andrew: They said it couldn't be done!

Dr. Val: They said it couldn't be done!

[Laughter]

Andrew: No, yeah. I mean, I think you're, I think you're absolutely right. And this is why I appreciate , they kept coming back to this sort of, like, third leg of their stool, right? It's like, resource equity, de, desegregating schools. But then also this real clear focus on “What is the student experience like?” And how are we creating, you know, it makes me think about Dr. Shanette Porter and belonging. How are we creating spaces of true belonging that we are not creating more educational opportunities like Saba had that gave her incredible access, but cost her her humanity. But rather creating spaces where everybody is fully recognized as their full human selves.

Because we can't go back to the old ways that we did desegregation. And if we want to take any hope from the idea of school integration, which I still do, it, like, it's, it's gotta be about creating these spaces where we're finding shared humanity. It's gotta be about learning together. And that has an inherent value that is separate from, though goes along with, but is separate from the resource distribution, which is also a real thing. That's separate from interrupting pockets of concentrated poverty, concentrated need, that we know is beneficial for all kids. Like, those things are all real, and the, the hopeful piece of it to me is the vision of the world that we can create if we are actually learning together, like Thurgood Marshall said.

Dr. Val: Um, so, we got into a little bit about young people and their voice in their own schools, and, you know, just how much do young people actually know, in terms of policy. And then, when I was reflecting a little bit further, and I'm thinking about my own children at this point, it's a lot of pressure and it feels incredibly unfair to assume that young people are going to fix this, right? I don't like that as a plan. I don't think that's a fair legacy to leave our children. Like, we're setting them up for some very difficult work moving forward that we could have addressed. That they did not have to walk into a future where they're addressing these problems that we haven't figured out yet. I am struggling with that being part of the legacy, part of the inheritance. It just feels disrespectful! [Val laughs]

Andrew: Yeah. The, I think the flip side to me is it also feels disrespectful to say, like, “We grownups are gonna tell you what your experience is like and what the right way to fix it is.” You know, I think there is, like, a balance to walk there, of finding places to bring in both, you know, the youth voice in terms of what they are actually experiencing in schools. Because I think, you know, one of the big challenges we have is that everybody thinks of school as this static thing. And I, you know, last year at some point got to sit in on a class in fifth grade, was, like, blown away by what teaching actually looks like today. Because I had, in my mind, teaching was what it was, you know, when I was in school a large number of years ago!

So, like, things change. We wanna make sure that the actual experience of kids who are experiencing education right now is centered and that we're learning from them.

And kids carry less of the societal level baggage that we all deal with. Not none of it, obviously, they start picking that up from the time they're, you know, 18 months old, but less of it. And they come with more clarity and better newer ideas, in terms of what are potential solutions. And we wanna make sure there's vehicles for those things to rise to the surface, to potentially, help us think about new ideas.

And, and then there, there's a point where that goes too far into “It's their responsibility” or “Let's just let them solve it,” or “Let's sort of abdicate our own responsibility because it's complicated, because it's hard because we've been trying it for, you know, years and years and decades and we haven't done it.” So like, throw up our hands and say, “Well, let's let the kids figure it out.” And I don't know how you walk that line.

Dr. Val: I think the best you can do in terms of walking that line is being a model for them about how you did decide to show up as a parent, by letting them know I want a better world for you. This is how I'm working for a better world for you, not just, a better world for “you!” [Val laughs] You know? Like, I'm working for a better WORLD for you, not just a better world for YOU. Emphasis placed.

And so, I think that's how we walk the line. When you do model it and you are honest about it, it gives our young people such a head start. I am not starting from not knowing how to have these conversations. And many of our listeners might be, right? Like, they're like, “Okay, I know I need to have this conversation. I don't know anybody in my family who's had this conversation. I wanna start this conversation.” And, and that feels hard and difficult. And if you're the first one to ever do it, it's going to feel challenging.

When we take that first step and we're modeling, like, where my children will start in terms of how they show up to make the world a better place, it’s gonna be much further than where ours started. Not because my family didn't show up, but because I have continued the legacy of doing that, you know?

And so,

Andrew: Progress . .. yeah

Dr. Val: …maybe that's what progress looks like.

Andrew: That certainly feels like progress. I think the other piece that that kind of transparency about “Here's how I'm advocating” and “I don't know.” “Here's how I, I'm advocating” and “It might not work.” “Here's how I'm advocating,” and “We may need to throw this all away and start with something new.” That transparency. I remember when after 9/11, the, the Department of Homeland Security was formed. And I was like, “Oh, wait, they can just, like, add a new department to the government?”

I was not young at that point, but the idea that I had was that the systems and structures were much more fixed than they actually are. That the government works the way that it's supposed to work, and, and it's always gonna be the same. And I think one of the potential things we can pull out of this time of turmoil, this time of chaos, this time of upheaval in the government, is this idea that we can build new structures. We can build new systems. That–

Dr. Val: Yes we can.

Andrew: –the way things have always been done is not the way they always have to be done.

Dr. Val: No. We're not going back.

Andrew: We're not going back. That's right.

Dr. Val: Can I ask you a question? So, there was talk in the interview about sacrifice, and Saba mentioned that, you know, her mom said, “I know it cost a lot and I would do it again because look at the position I was able to put you in.” And then Ary at the end talked about, like, some sacrifices that just will be required of all of us if we're trying to create this community that we want and that we're working for.

And so, you know, it feels like, Andrew, some folks are willing to sacrifice, and others are not willing to sacrifice. I'm curious about what sacrifice may mean or feel like to privileged White parents. Because if I'm willing to sacrifice, like, my kids' WHOLE identity [Val chuckles] in order to, to put them in a situation where the odds are in their favor because they have, like, a, a stronger, you know, network, and stronger is in air quotes…

Andrew: More experienced teachers, better curriculum, more access to AP classes, all of those things, yeah.

Dr. Val: You know, but, like, lose their, their, identity. Right. If I'm willing to sacrifice that for my child, like, what, what does sacrifice feel like for our privileged White parents? If you may speak on behalf of all of them [Val laughs]

Andrew: Yeah, sure. Um, yeah, I mean the idea of sacrifice carries so much weight in White privileged parenting circles.

Dr. Val: Okay.

Andrew: And I think the way that we often think about it is, in some ways like the, the measure of being a good parent is “What are you willing to sacrifice for your kids?” And because so much of the way we think about and talk about quote, unquote good schools, and getting the best for our kids is about putting them in the Whitest, wealthiest spaces possible, it's easy to, to feel like the right sacrifice that you're supposed to be making is to spend a little more than you can to buy a house in a quote, unquote good school district. To drive your kid across town to the “arts magnet school.” To pay for after school tutoring for your kid. To make sure that you spend every afternoon driving them around to all of their various activities so that their college applications look better, and that that's where people are directing their sort of quote, unquote sacrifice energy.

Dr. Val: Ahh.

Andrew: Because, there's something terrifying about being a parent. About having these little people out there that you are responsible for. And there's no way to know for sure what you're doing, if it's gonna work or not! If it's, if you're doing the right thing, you know? And so, we cling to these things that give us some sense of certainty and some sense of clarity. Like, “This is the right thing.”

The message is “Get a good education for your kid.” Well, okay, great. What does that mean? Well, “Go to the highly rated school.” So what does that mean? That means the Whitest school you can find. That means the wealthiest school you can find. You know? And I don't think this is, like, exclusive to White parents, but certainly a big, a big part of White parenting culture.

And so, the desire to want to sacrifice for your kids is universal. The ways that we go about doing that, I think often get misdirected.

And because I can't go more than, you know, an episode and a half without talking about Elizabeth McCray and the Mothers of Massive Resistance.

But I think, like, this, this is intentional. Like, it's part of the plan to replicate White supremacy to create this impression such that you feel like doing a good job as a parent, as a liberal parent who rejects the ideas of White supremacy, at least intellectually, that, like, what it means to do a good job is to actually replicate White supremacy.

Right? And I think that so much of our work, I view, is, is about trying to interrupt that. Trying to step into that and say, “What does sacrifice actually mean?” What are you actually sacrificing? Where could you direct that “sacrifice” energy?

Dr. Val: Mmm. What I, what I heard in your examples about “I'm sacrificing, like, maybe my free time” or….

Andrew: Some resources.

Dr. Val: Yeah, I think that's, I think that's true for Black parents as well. But something about it feels different. And I'm trying to, like, I'm trying to figure that out.

Andrew: I, I wonder if it's who we are sacrificing for. Like to me,

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Andrew: There's some question of, this is about, like, collectivism versus individualism. That is about like, what's good for, for my individual kid, How do I get my kid a leg up on the quote, unquote competition versus, like, what's good for everybody.

Dr. Val: Yeah. Black parents are making these choices, like, for their individual families, for sure. I think what, I think what the difference is it doesn't feel like I am, I'm making those sacrifices so that no one else can benefit. I, I'm gonna sacrifice because I, I want the best for my kid and my family and everybody can take part in this!

Like, this is not like an exclusive thing, right? We can all take part in this, and I think that's what feels different? Sacrifice, whatever you can, for your child. That makes sense. Literally every, every caregiver will do and make the sacrifices necessary for their young people. But that doesn't mean that I, I don't want other people to also have what I have. And yeah, I think it goes back to Heather McGhee and the zero-sum. Like, there's plenty, there's plenty out here.

Andrew: Not, not only is there plenty, but, like, actually there could be more.

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Andrew: Right? Like the pie grows if we, if we are all getting pie.

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Andrew: You know, the better we do for everybody, the better everybody does. It doesn't actually take away from anybody, and in fact, makes everybody better.

Dr. Val: Yeah. Yeah. Because you know, If we have a world in which our young people are well educated, and know how to get along with one another, then [Val chuckles] our future can only be bright. I don't see a downside in this.

Andrew: This idea of sacrifice and obviously, you know, so much of, of our work is about trying to, to both, you know, redefine what it means to actually sacrifice and then, like, what the potential benefits can be of what may feel like a sacrifice, but is in so many ways, giving your kids things that they might not otherwise have.

I think in this time of, of turmoil, lots of people are looking for ways to do something. Lots of people are looking to rest. Which I think we definitely should also rest and process and, take care of ourselves. But I do think as we're looking for ways to channel the anxiety that we feel about the future. Channel, the, maybe rage, but hopefully that we can find ways to shift that into love and, and hope and community. I think thinking about both where we send our kids to school and how we engage with the education system, is a way to have a real positive impact, even in the midst of all of the chaos that's going on.

And it's easy to get caught up in the, kind of, national level conversation. It's easy to get caught up in the desire to protest cabinet positions or big national level policies, and I think there's room for that sort of advocacy effort, but I do think that there's real potential because of the decentralized nature of our education system, there is real potential to have positive local impact by getting engaged in local school communities, by thinking about where we are sending our kids to school and how we are showing up there.

Dr. Val: I think we are all going to get a crash course in local engagement. In how our, our local government works and how we can advocate for the change that we want.

I encourage people to, to have their necessary boundaries to, to feel good, from a mental health standpoint. And I, I think there are ways to engage locally that will allow you to, to feel connected to purpose, And that's what I, I want people to do.

More than ever, I think educators will need lots of support in the work that they're trying to do. I, I think parents who are in support of our public education system and the adults who are, are working to make it happen, need to be more vocal about that, especially locally.

You know, there, there needs to be a real assessment of your resources, whether they're time, your talents or your dollars to say, like, “How do I use these things to live out my values?”

Andrew: Yes. Well, we're still here. We're still plugging along.

Dr. Val: We are. We are.

Andrew: We’ve got more episodes coming. Continuing the conversation in the midst of the unknown, thinking about how we continue to stay connected to each other through everything that's going on.

And, listeners, we need your help to do it! So if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, we have a new subscription available called IS+, Integrated Schools Plus. It's a way to support us directly through your podcast app. If you're listening on Apple Podcast right now, you can just go ahead and click that subscribe button.

You give us a little bit of money every month and we will occasionally throw some bonus episodes in your feed. Some of the, um, maybe less filtered conversations that Val and I have or some extra outtakes, other conversations that'll come in there. We would be really grateful for your support in that.

Dr. Val: Absolutely. You know, thank you to all uh, who listened to our most recent episode and sent feedback about it. I know lots of people have feelings and thoughts and might wanna engage in conversation, so please leave us a, a voice memo. We would love to have caregivers call and, like, process some of these things with us on an episode, we think that's a valuable use of our time to, like, really hear from you and, and what you're grappling with. So, don't hesitate to leave a voicemail or if you have an idea, about a potential episode or if you want to be a guest on an episode, please reach out.

Andrew: Speakpipe.com/integrated schools or just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to podcast@integratedschools.org.

Dr. Val: And keep listening, keep sharing. Part of what we feel like is on mission is that we are continuing a conversation and adding to a conversation that we hope is happening in communities across the country. And so, thank you for your part in that.

Andrew: Absolutely. And thank you, Val. As always, it is an honor to be in this with you as I try to know better and do better.

Dr. Val: Until next time.