Yes, we’re still at it! Quietly but steadily, Great Schools for All continues to work behind the scenes to build support for the creation over time of a network of voluntary cross-district socioeconomically diverse magnet schools offering opportunities not otherwise available in our current schools – new schools designed to improve outcomes for all students, …
In the Raleigh/Wake County public school system, more than 35 magnet schools of varying grade levels have been established over the years, each deliberately drawing a socioeconomically diverse student population. GS4A representatives spent three days visiting the district several years ago, and were impressed with the strong schools and the student outcomes. There have been …
Excerpt from a Rochester Beacon opinion from April 22, 2019 by Mark Hare and Don Pryor “GS4A is not advocating the creation of a single countywide school district. Rather, we support a network of voluntary interdistrict schools. Our niche at GS4A has been to insist on a public school system that does its job to …
Rochester needs socioeconomically diverse, cross-district magnet schools Read More »
NY Times opinion by Myron Orfield and Will Stancil: “George Floyd and Derek Chauvin Might as Well Have Lived on Different Planets” – June 3, 2020 “Minneapolis also operated an aggressive school desegregation plan…This new approach focused more on improving segregated schools than eliminating them, and uplifting impoverished neighborhoods without directly addressing the region’s racialized …
Minneapolis unrest stems from segregated schools and neighborhoods Read More »
From the LA School Report: “Haves and have-nots: The borders between school districts often mark extreme segregation. A new study outlines America’s 50 worst cases” by Mark Keierleber, January 22, 2020 “The Rust Belt city of Rochester in upstate New York has the most economically segregating school district border in the country, walling off the …
Rochester’s extreme school segregation, worst in U.S. Read More »
From Children of the Dream by Rucker Johnson “We are frequently told that school integration was a social experiment doomed from the start. But as Rucker C. Johnson demonstrates in Children of the Dream, it was, in fact, a spectacular achievement. Drawing on longitudinal studies going back to the 1960s, he shows that students who …
School integration actually drives social mobility Read More »
By Mark Hare and Don Pryor We have an April 9, 2019 opinion piece in City Newspaper: “Integrated metro schools can be a reality in Rochester. ” Facit: “Given local demographics and finite available resources, desegregating schools and reversing the insidious effects of concentrated poverty in Rochester schools require a broad-based, community-wide response. For example, …
Desegregating Rochester schools requires community wide response Read More »
To date, more than 1,180 individuals and 150 local organizations, including Great Schools for All, have endorsed this call to action challenging individuals and organizations to take specific steps to help eliminate organizational and community policies, practices and behaviors that perpetuate inequity. Add your name to the statement here.
Special congratulations to Clay Osborne, member of Great School for All’s steering committee, who recently was awarded the Rochester Area Community Foundation’s Joe U. Posner Founders Award, the Foundation’s highest community service and philanthropy award. A well-deserved honor, Clay! In his acceptance remarks, Clay stated: “I urge that we continue to seek out the missing …
On June 25th, Democratic voters in the City of Rochester will choose the four candidates who will appear on the Democratic Party line in the November election for the Rochester Board of Education. Great Schools for All (GS4A) does not support specific candidates, but urges voters to designate candidates who are collaborative in their approach and supportive of cross-district, …
Vote for a brighter future for city schools on June 25 Read More »
