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Each summer during new employee orientation at I open with a hard reality: Despite the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, most school districts remain deeply segregated. New York City 鈥� one of the most diverse cities on earth 鈥� is home to the largest and most segregated school district in the nation. 

A report released last month makes this even harder to ignore: New York State ranks among the most segregated in the entire country. That finding builds on a showing that deep school segregation in New York City has been the status quo since at least 2009. In some districts, the racial divide looks no different than it did in the 1930s.

Why have the state and the city failed to live up to the promise of excellent schools for all? Because a misconception persists: that building racially and economically diverse schools means lower quality and less academic rigor. Prospect Schools, a K-12 network of intentionally diverse charter schools in Brooklyn, was founded to challenge this notion, and I鈥檓 proud to have served as CEO since 2021. 

Brooklyn Prospect, our first campus, was the city鈥檚 first public charter school designed intentionally to be integrated along racial and socio-economic lines. Today, Prospect Schools serves almost 3,000 students across seven campuses, and is one of the few open enrollment public charter school networks offering the International Baccalaureate program to all high school students. Integrated schools benefit all students and raise performance across the board by spreading out resources and opportunity, expanding access to the best teachers and facilities, and preparing learners to thrive in a diverse world. 

The recent appointment of New York City Public Schools’ Chancellor Kamar Samuels and his policy agenda underscore that equity and excellence are not at odds. He garnered community support during previous leadership roles while  pursuing integration, an approach usually too controversial to touch. As superintendent of District 13 here in Brooklyn, he made the bold decision to replace exclusionary programs with school-wide IB enrichment. He understood that true equity isn鈥檛 about picking winners and losers; it鈥檚 about raising the ceiling for every child. 

Since taking office, Chancellor Samuels has signaled he is ready to hold this entire city accountable to a vision of education that is both radically inclusive and relentlessly rigorous. This is the right move for New York City. It also validates the approach to integrated education we rely on at Prospect Schools, where nearly two decades of work demonstrate that this vision can deliver meaningful results for students. 

We operate with a conviction that Samuels shares: that students learn best alongside peers who do not look, pray or live like them. At Prospect, we are 鈥渄iverse by design,鈥� which means we ensure that all of our classrooms reflect the vibrant diversity of the city through strategic recruitment, a weighted lottery, provision in our charter and a program that is inclusive and affirming. The result is a student body that is 29% White, 29% Black, 27% Hispanic and 10% multi-racial;  currently 44% of our students qualify for free and reduced-priced meals. 

We ensure all of our students have access to excellent teachers and rigorous academic curriculum which we model on the renowned IB Program. Through this globally recognized program, we raise the level of academic responsibility for all our students by cultivating curiosity, academic confidence, empowerment, global mindedness, community stewardship and life readiness. Further, we have proven that when you combine this intentional diversity with the high bar of the IB curriculum, the results are transformative.

Our students excel on state English language and math exams, most recently outperforming their city and district peers by 23 and 18 percentage points, respectively. This past year, over 80% of our graduating class was IB Diploma eligible, the highest in our history, and 100% of graduates were accepted into college. 

In Chancellor Samuels, I see a kindred spirit: a leader who understands that equity and excellence are not zero-sum competitors but twin pillars of a functioning democracy. Like Chancellor Samuels, I am the proud daughter of West Indian immigrants. I attended school in the Bronx and navigated the complexities of being a first-generation college student. Those experiences taught me early on that talent is distributed equally, but opportunity is not.

When I discovered the IB program, I saw a framework that didn鈥檛 just teach students what to think, but how to think. I knew then that this opportunity shouldn’t be reserved for private schools or select tracks of students 鈥� it belonged in every neighborhood and should be accessible to every child. 

We need this focus now more than ever. We are living in a time of deep polarization across our country, where echo chambers are solidifying into concrete walls. If NYC schools continue to remain segregated by race, class or academic tracking, we are merely preparing the next generation to perpetuate this divide. By championing integrated schools, academic excellence for all and global-mindedness of the IB, Chancellor Samuels is offering an antidote to this fragmentation. 

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