Building One New Jersey 2017 Policy Forum

School Integration and Funding Equity

Two Sides Of The Same Coin

Public schools, public education, and public educators have been under sustained attack

New Jersey’s racial segregation and its deep fiscal disparities have made it possible

Building One New Jersey will host a conversation on segregation and school funding with Professor Myron Orfield, law professor, author, civil-rights attorney, and director of the Institute for Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

(On the Eve of the Anniversary of the Brown v. Board Decision)

6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

Mercer County Community College

The James Kerney Campus

102 N. Broad Street, Trenton, NJ 08608

These two forces have combined to exacerbate an already deepening crisis in high poverty urban districts while driving up taxes, widening disparities and fueling resentment in increasingly diverse, middle class suburbs - tensions that have been expertly exploited by those seeking to benefit both politically and financially.

Unless we grapple directly and meaningfully with the glaring issue of racial segregation in our schools and regions, we will be unable to understand and defend against the exploitation of and attacks on public education, educators, and the public sector in general. And the costs, both human and economic will continue to rise.

Building One New Jersey is convening this gathering of educators, civil-rights and community leaders from cities and suburbs to discuss the opportunities before us to address both issues - school segregation and fair school funding - together and to seek lasting solutions that move us all closer to the ideals that we as a nation and a state aspire. 

In addition to Professor Orfield, speakers include Thelma Napoleon-Smith, daughter of Berline Williams. Ms. Williams spearheaded the 1944 New Jersey school desegregation case, laying the groundwork for the Brown case ten years later.

Following the forum there will be an opportunity for a private viewing of the exhibition Schools for the Colored by renowned photographer Wendell A. White.

This event builds on Building One New Jersey's recent forum on Race, Place, and Opportunity Featuring Princeton University Professor Mitchell Duneier author of the new book Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea and is part of BOA's series of forums on labor/civil rights.