Dive Brief:
- The federal Departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation held a joint listening session Wednesday, bringing together educators, researchers, community leaders and policy experts to discuss community-led strategies for promoting diversity in the nation’s schools and neighborhoods.
- In announcing the session, the Department of Education said there would be panels on the benefits of diversity, a case study about diversity work that has already been done, community planning and opportunities at the federal level.
- Wednesday’s session came out of the Stronger Together proposal, which was included in President Barack Obama’s 2017 budget to support the development and expansion of community-driven strategies to increase socioeconomic diversity in the nation’s schools.
Dive Insight:
While some administrations have taken their feet off the gas in the final year of a presidential term, Obama seems to be pressing full speed ahead and asking his staff to do the same. He has said interesting things happen in the fourth quarter. And, with a new head of the Department of Education in John King, who wants to do as much as he can while he has the power, equity initiatives have been particularly championed in schools. Just this week, King announced new efforts to incorporate measures of socioeconomic diversity in grant program evaluations. While some of these efforts could fizzle under new leadership in Washington, if federal agencies can support the development of new community-led initiatives, and help get them off the ground, they should be able to expect them to continue even with a new president.