NYU Metro Center Blog

Changing the Narrative: Exploring Testimonies of Love, Advocacy, and Healing Among Black Fathers

In these stories, families recalled the historical practices, passed down throughout generations on how to navigate and persist in systems that often-perpetuated negative stereotypes about the ways in which Black families engage in their children’s educational process both inside and outside of schooling spaces.

Cultivating New Ground in Culturally Responsive Curriculum

In this blog post, researcher Dr. Leah Q. Peoples and Innovations in Equity and Systemic Change (IESC)’s Senior Equity Associate, Dr. Andolyn Brown share a historical overview of representation in curriculum. Throughout the text, Drs. Peoples & Brown contrast “Old Ground” curriculum, the superficial and stereotyped portrayals of marginalized groups, with “New Ground” curriculum, which seeks a more comprehensive representation and the inclusion of intersecting identities. In addition to highlighting NYU Metro Center’s forthcoming report, “Cultivating New Ground: Shifts Towards Culturally Responsive Curriculum”. (June 2026)

On Color and Credit: Black Parental Authority and the Politics of Institutional Trust

How does anti-Blackness operate within institutions? In this blog post, IESC's Senior Equity Associate, Dr. Crystal Martin, examines the role of skepticism, credibility gaps, and the politics of institutional trust for Black parents.

The Contradictions and Intersections Between Education and Incarceration

As guest editors of the latest issue of NYU Metro Center’s Voices in Urban Education (VUE), titled "Abolitionist Praxis and Education Across Prison Walls," the New York University Prison Education Program (NYU PEP) team shares their collective thoughts about the contradictions and intersections between education and incarceration.

Culturally Responsive Scorecards as a Catalyst for Powerful Conversations

NYU Metro Center's forthcoming report, "Conversations that Shift the Ground", explores outcomes associated with using English Language Arts (ELA) and Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) Culturally Responsive Curriculum Scorecards created by our own Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative (EJ-ROC) team. In this blog post, researcher Dr. Leah Q. Peoples outlines the findings of this study, including the power of participatory research tools, and how culturally responsive curriculum advances the creation of welcoming and affirming schools.

“A Rose By Any Other Name”: Doing the Work When You Can’t Say the Work

In this blog post NYU Metro Center’s Dr. Crystal Martin encourages educators fighting for social justice not to be limited by “banned words” or restrictive systems, but rather to demonstrate the resilience that freedom dreaming requires.

Addressing Math Inequities Through Interactive Collaborative Digital Math Lessons

In this blog post, Erika Abarca Millán, PhD, and Sara McAlister, MPA, researchers at the Center for Policy, Research, and Evaluation (PRE), share early insights from a study, funded by the Gates foundation, on how digital math tools can help make students' mathematical thinking visible and support collaborative learning approaches.

Dreaming Toward Healing: Reflections from the Equity Now Conference Panel And A Call to Action

How do we create thriving schools for all our children? In this blog post, Dr. Wenimo Okoya, Director of the Institute of Healing and Belonging in Schools (IHBS) at NYU Metro Center, dessiminates insights from her Equity Now Conference panel, and shares a call to action for educators to "reconnect" & "imagine again" through Freedom Dreaming.

From Belonging to Becoming: A Blog Post Series on Memory, Institutions, and Freedom Dreams (Part 1)

How do we create spaces where everyone not only feels they matter and belong—but also where their cultures are actively centered, and not just passively included? In this blog post, Dr. Crystal Martin, Senior Equity Associate with the Institute for Healing and Belonging in Schools at NYU Metro Center, explores her earliest memories of “belonging” for relevant insights on how to transform education.

Shaping Futures with Words: Toward More Explicitly Antiracist Discourse in NAEYC’s Developmentally Appropriate Practice and Family-School Partnerships Guidelines

What are the policy and practice implications for changes to National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)’s key Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) texts? In this blog post study authors make the case for explicitly anti-racist reciprocal partnerships with families and communities within the DAP texts, to facilitate greater equity and social justice in educational practices.

Healing Our Communities from Harm: The Importance of Centering Joy and Liberation in Schools

How do we build communities that nourish and uplift Black children? In this blog post Dr. Wenimo Okoya of the Institute for Healing and Belonging in Schools (IHBS) at NYU Metro Center, illustrates the disproportionate harm caused by ongoing crises upon communities of color, and the significance of creating Welcoming, Healing and Affirming Schools for all of our children.

Fostering Culturally Responsive Districts and Schools: Leveraging Student Voice in Addressing Disproportionality

Today’s students are well aware of disparities within schooling and deserve the platform to discuss and address them collectively. In this blog post, authors the of Dismantling Disproportionality in Practice offer specific frameworks, processes, and tools on how districts and schools can build student voice to address disproportionality.

Fostering Culturally Responsive Districts and Schools: Understanding the Root Cause Analysis Process

How can teams in districts and schools leverage a root cause analysis to take action on their disproportionality? In this blog post, authors the of Dismantling Disproportionality in Practice offers the essential components to conduct a root cause analysis including the processes, and application tools districts can take to effectively address their disproportionality.

Authentic CRSE: Tackling Beliefs through Self to System Reflection and Action

Why is having a self to system reflection practice critical to addressing disproportionality? This blog post centers the mindsets and practices needed to support education practitioners to engage both theory and practice, in the effort to enact positive change within schooling systems.

Teaching about the Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Civil Disobedience and Mass Protest in the 1960’s (Part 2)

What can we learn from the Free Speech Movement (FSM)? Why should we commemorate FSM? In part one of this blog post series, Dr. Robert Cohen explores how this student rebellion helped define the 1960s as an era of unprecedented student protest in the United States. And underscores the significance of teaching about FSM today.

Teaching about the Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Civil Disobedience and Mass Protest in the 1960’s (Part 1)

“We’re all, like, one community”: Latinx youths’ sense of belonging in community-based organizations

What is the importance of social support and trusting relationships amongst youth of color? How do community and youth-based organizations foster connection and solidarity with Latinx youth? Dr. Sophia Rodriguez explores the barriers that attribute to lack on belonging that newly arrived Latinx youth experience.

“I Hate It Here”: How Minoritized Youth Perceive School and Social Belonging in Contested Racial Climates of Public Schools

Why do Black and Latinx students, and students of immigrant backgrounds report lesser feelings of acceptance and inclusion than their white peers? Dr. Sophia Rodriguez explores the experiences of youth of color and opportunities to create structural change in education policy.

Eclipsing ‘Reduce-Reuse-Recycle’: Having More Honest Conversations with Ourselves and Our Young People | Part 2

How do we have difficult conversations about the state of the Earth's climate with young children? In this blog post, Shana Viglieger directs adults to honor their children with the truth, and afford them opportunities to make critical, regenerative changes to the environment.

Eclipsing ‘Reduce-Reuse-Recycle’: Having More Honest Conversations with Ourselves and Our Young People this Earth Day | Part 1

As the impact of climate change on the planet becomes increasingly more visible and detrimental, how can we encourage greater constructive action? In this blog post, Shana Viglieger calls for improved climate accountability and equity for youth of color and the communities most impacted by environmental injustice.

“Disruptive Pupils” and “Forlorn Teachers”: How Educators Participated in the Expansion of Suspensions In NYC Schools

Teachers do not enter the profession to punish or exclude students. And yet numerous educators come to participate in racist and ineffective disciplinary practices. In the final blog post of this multi-part series, Dr. Rachel Lissy explores an often unspoken truth about school discipline policies.

Parent Organizing for Racial Equity Case Study #4

This case study tells the story of Parents for Public Schools (PPS) as they work to build a more racially equitable public school community for families in Mississippi.

Parent Organizing For Racial Equity Case Study #2

This case study focuses on the Organizers in the Land of Enchantment (OLÉ) project to advance racial and language equity with their members in New Mexico.

Parent Organizing For Racial Equity Case Study #3

This case study highlights the journey of the WSA Parent Ambassadors to build a culture of community that values justice, equity, diversity and inclusion that uplifts parent voices. Parent Ambassadors centers these values in the advocacy and organizing efforts of Parent Ambassadors, thus interrupting perpetuating White-dominant culture and policy making.

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Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools

Perspectives

Driving Equity and Access in Education

Featured Posts

Changing the Narrative: Exploring Testimonies of Love, Advocacy, and Healing Among Black Fathers

Cultivating New Ground in Culturally Responsive Curriculum

On Color and Credit: Black Parental Authority and the Politics of Institutional Trust

More Stories

The Contradictions and Intersections Between Education and Incarceration

Culturally Responsive Scorecards as a Catalyst for Powerful Conversations

“A Rose By Any Other Name”: Doing the Work When You Can’t Say the Work

Addressing Math Inequities Through Interactive Collaborative Digital Math Lessons

Dreaming Toward Healing: Reflections from the Equity Now Conference Panel And A Call to Action

From Belonging to Becoming: A Blog Post Series on Memory, Institutions, and Freedom Dreams (Part 1)

Shaping Futures with Words: Toward More Explicitly Antiracist Discourse in NAEYC’s Developmentally Appropriate Practice and Family-School Partnerships Guidelines

Healing Our Communities from Harm: The Importance of Centering Joy and Liberation in Schools

Fostering Culturally Responsive Districts and Schools: Leveraging Student Voice in Addressing Disproportionality

Fostering Culturally Responsive Districts and Schools: Understanding the Root Cause Analysis Process

Authentic CRSE: Tackling Beliefs through Self to System Reflection and Action

Teaching about the Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Civil Disobedience and Mass Protest in the 1960’s (Part 2)

Teaching about the Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Civil Disobedience and Mass Protest in the 1960’s (Part 1)

“We’re all, like, one community”: Latinx youths’ sense of belonging in community-based organizations

“I Hate It Here”: How Minoritized Youth Perceive School and Social Belonging in Contested Racial Climates of Public Schools

Eclipsing ‘Reduce-Reuse-Recycle’: Having More Honest Conversations with Ourselves and Our Young People | Part 2

Eclipsing ‘Reduce-Reuse-Recycle’: Having More Honest Conversations with Ourselves and Our Young People this Earth Day | Part 1

“Disruptive Pupils” and “Forlorn Teachers”: How Educators Participated in the Expansion of Suspensions In NYC Schools

Parent Organizing for Racial Equity Case Study #4

Parent Organizing For Racial Equity Case Study #2

Parent Organizing For Racial Equity Case Study #3

PRE Research Brief Series: Responsive and Sustaining Research Practices #2

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