Brown’s Promise Appoints Veteran Youth Advocate Cara Berg Powers to Drive Massachusetts Desegregation Strategy at 71st Anniversary of Brown v. Board

Washington, D.C.—Brown’s Promise today announced the appointment of Cara Berg Powers as its Massachusetts State Director. Berg Powers brings decades of experience working to expand education equity as an advocate, instructor, organizer, and nonprofit leader. She has taught at colleges and universities across Massachusetts.

Cara will lead the organization's strategy to confront school segregation and inequality in Massachusetts—work that comes as the nation marks 71 years since the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. 

Massachusetts ranked atop the 2025 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), but the state’s overall success masks deep inequalities beneath the surface. In recent years, the gap between low-income students and their better-off peers has grown more than in other states. That failure to deliver on the promise of equal opportunity for all students is driven in large part by persistent racial and economic school segregation.

Massachusetts public schools are some of the most segregated in the country, ranking 6th worst in the country for economic segregation in schools, and 2nd worst for economic segregation between school districts, according to data from Stanford’s Segregation Tracking Project. Students of color are disproportionately hurt by these trends: the average Black or Hispanic student’s school serves almost 30 percentage points more students experiencing poverty than the average white student’s school. 

Berg Powers’ leadership will build upon the organization’s ongoing efforts in Massachusetts, which include six community listening sessions over the last year, where students, educators, and community members have raised concerns about educational inequities between segregated school districts.

“In Massachusetts we pride ourselves on our progressive values and our commitment to public education. But it’s not good enough to be a national leader for some students,” said Berg Powers. “More than seven decades after Brown v. Board, our schools are still deeply divided by race and wealth. If we want to really deliver on the promise of a great education for every student—regardless of their family’s background or how much money their parents make—we need to end school segregation once and for all.”

“Our communities, our workplaces, our democracy, and our kids’ futures are all so much stronger when they learn to work and play together with people from all backgrounds from the start,” said Brown’s Promise co-founder Ary Amerikaner. “At a time when the core values of fairness and equality are under attack at the national level—when powerful people would take us back to a time where school segregation was the norm—Massachusetts has the opportunity to light a path forward. And Cara is the perfect person to help lead the way. I’m so thrilled she decided to join us.”

Before a 12-year tenure at the Transformative Culture Project, Cara founded the Youth Media Institute at Project: Think Different and ran digital media programming for the United Teen Equity Center. Cara holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Change and is currently a Visiting Lecturer in the Education department at her alma mater, Clark University. She has also taught courses at UMASS Boston and Wheelock College.

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Hosted at Southern Education Foundation, Brown’s Promise is fighting to advance educational equity through integration. Brown’s Promise collaborates with partners to use research, litigation, and advocacy to create diverse, well-resourced schools for all children. To learn more about Brown’s Promise, visit www.brownspromise.org/about