Brown v. Board of Education: Are we going backward? Does it matter?

[prolesunited]

As the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling is marked, the country's public schools are, in effect, resegregating, according to federal Census and Education Department data.

Educators, federal monitors and civil rights activists are warning that an unequal educational system -- one based on wealth and cutting along racial lines -- is returning to classrooms in Little Rock and the rest of the country, creating a skills gap between white and minority students.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/05/15/schools.desegregation/index.html


Harvard University's Civil Rights Project Findings
In many districts where court-ordered desegregation was ended in the past decade, there has been a major increase in segregation;

U.S. public schools are now 60 percent white nationwide, and nearly one-fourth of all U.S. students are in states with a majority of nonwhite students.

The vast majority of intensely segregated minority schools face conditions of concentrated poverty, which are related to unequal educational opportunity.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/05/15/harvard.report/index.html


SOME QUESTIONS (Feel free to add anything)
Is this an important issue?
What is causing this situation?
Would you consider this a form of racism?
What is the impact if the trend is not reversed?
What are some steps we can take to improve the situation?




Links posted by CNN
CNN.com: Segregation no longer black and white (http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/04/23/brown.at.50.ap/index.html)

Brown vs. Board of Ed (http://brownvboard.org/)

http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/enlight/brown.htm (http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/enlight/brown.htm)

U.S. Department of Education: Brown v. Board of Education 50th Anniversary Commission (http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/brownvboard50th/index.html)

Teaching Tolerance: BROWN V. BOARD: An American Legacy (http://tolerance.org/teach/expand/mag/features.jsp?p=0&is=34)

National Education Association: Horizons of Opportunities: Celebrating 50 Years of Brown v. Board of Education May 17, 1954-2004 (http://www.nea.org/brownvboard/)

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Timeline of Events Leading to the Brown v. Board of Education Decision, 1954 (http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/brown_v_board_documents/timeline.html)

[drthais]

1. of course it's racism!

I cannot speak for other areas of the country
but here in the South it goes like this:

white people pull their kids out of public schools
(and yes, its because they don't want their children
going to school with black people!)
then they send their kids to a 'religious' school
many of which are started ONLY because the whites want segregation
some are even built in white subdivisions
many people will move to a suburb that is overwhelmingly white
in order to avoid integration

as a result, public schools
(which are funded by property taxes)
are struggling to keep on
with less and less funds
(oh yes and of course the states are funding schools
at a much lower rate than they used to - dont ask me why)

the remaining public schools are in very poor condition
and can usually only attract teachers on the lower end as well

and so, now we have segregation again
yippee

[redqueen]

5. You're conveniently forgetting about poor whites

not really uncommon, but there it is.

[sybylla]

2. Apparently the Chimp wants separate but equal for boys and girls

Guess he's longing for the good old days.

more at this DU thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1615969

[AgadorSparticus]

22. i don't buy the separate but equal schtick for one minute.

he HAS to say that in order to push his agenda through. talk about short memories. HOW can ANYONE trust anything that comes out of bush's mouth? doesn't anyone think he always has an alterior motive?? sounds like yet another thinly vieled attempt at pushing his bigotry and mysogeny.

[AspenRose]

3. Racism intertwined with economics

because upper-middle class minorities can afford to send their children to private schools, and often do, because they know that if they go to public school, they may fall through the cracks....and they want them to be competitive for college.

[tom_paine]

4. Something like that is the case.

[pnb]

6. You just made an argument AGAINST it being racist...

...Right after calling it racist.

Lots of white parents want the exact same thing you just mentioned.

[tigereye]

8. actually there were some good articles from both the

"African-American" perspective and "Caucasian" perspective with related economic and social analysis in this Sunday's NYT. Pretty good analysis, I thought. It is a very difficult question though. One of the articles indicated that some A-A parents preferred their children to attend a neighborhood school rather than being bused to achieve racial or cultural balance. However, many people thought that the cultural diversity on the whole, after years of turmoil and litigation, was a great plus for all kids.

It has a personal element for me, as I choose to send my son to a private progressive school and not the local school, for very complex reasons that have to do with the "what is best for my child" vs. "what is best for everyone as a whole" question. This has been a bit of a struggle for me, too.

as usual very thoughtful question, Proles. :hi:

[AspenRose]

10. That was not my intention

and I don't see anywhere in my post where I said it was out-and-out racist.

My point was that it was a complicated mix of racism (white flight) combined with economics (well-to-do minorities trying to get their children in better (funded) schools). It isn't as easy as "it's racism and only racism" or "it's economics and only economics." That's all I was trying to say.

[pnb]

11. I understand...

...and I didn't mean to imply that you were saying that was all it was. I'm sorry if I did so.

It just seems to me thought that the two new scenarios you mention (white flight and the well-to-minorities getting children in better schools) are pretty much the same thing...for the same reasons as well.

[AspenRose]

13. Democracy for America's blog today is good

"A Black child faces a one in three chance of attending a school with 90 percent or more minority enrollment, and is more than twice as likely as a White child to be suspended, expelled, or given corporal punishment. A Black child is more likely than a White child to drop out of school, is more than twice as likely to be behind grade level and to be labeled mentally retarded, but is only half as likely to be labeled gifted. Whites are almost 3.5 times more likely than Blacks to take Advanced Placement exams. The longer a Black child is in public schools, the farther he or she falls behind."

Marian Wright Edelman today. "We Must Build a Movement"

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/

I was one of those 'one in three' minority kids who got to live in the suburbs, attend "white" schools, and was not put in advanced classes in junior high, like the test scores and teachers said I should have been, until high school. Three years lost. Still graduated in the top quarter, went to college, graduated, and I will begin graduate school in the fall. I am the first in my immediate family to finish college and will be the first to go to graduate school. Even with the failure of counselors in the "white" schools to place me correctly, what would my odds have been, had I gone to a predominately inner-city minority school?

These days it depends. There are sterling examples of inner city academies that demand excellence from the students and teachers, and the students do well and move on. There just aren't nearly enough of them.

[LSdemocrat]

7. Here a good discussion on the topic from the NY Times

The discussion is between Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates Jr.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/16/books/review/16INTERVI.html

A link to a video of the discussion is on the right-hand side of the page.

[redqueen]

9. Economics - classism

IMO the Milliken v. Bradley decision put the final nail in the coffin wrt desegregation.

http://www.africanamericans.com/MillikenvBradley.htm

A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States of America

Many observers believed that, for school busing to be effective as an instrument of school integration, black students should be bused out of the central cities into schools in the outlying suburbs. Only in this way, it was argued, could busing be instituted without having the effect of driving the remaining white families out of the city. The Supreme Court did not agree with this proposed solution, however, ruling five-to-four in Milliken v. Bradley that the suburbs had not caused the de facto segregation in the central cities and thus were not required to help provide a solution to the problem.

The Milliken decision represented a turning-point for the Supreme Court where racial matters were concerned. Richard M. Nixon, a Republican, had been elected president of the United States in 1968, succeeding Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson. Nixon did not share Johnson's enthusiasm for rapid advancement in the civil rights arena, and his Supreme Court appointments had reflected this less-involved attitude. All four Nixon appointees voted with the majority in the Milliken v. Bradley decision. The central cities were to cope alone with the problem of de facto segregation of public schools. The suburbs had been granted judicial permission to remain "lily white."

After the Milliken decision, school administrators in central cities searched for imaginative new ways to provide some measure of racial integration in their school systems. One idea was creating "magnet schools" with specialized curricula, such as advanced science or music classes, that students from the suburbs would want to attend. Improved school buildings often were combined with enriched academic programs to make magnet schools extra attractive to suburban students and their parents.
--------

IMO now that we have large numbers of middle- and upper-class minorities able to move their children wherever the better schools are, the focus should be on the social conditions which create the worse schools - poverty chiefly among them. Focusing solely on race only muddles the issue and creates more resentment among the lower classes.

[redqueen]

20. If anyone else would care to comment on Milliken v Bradley

I'd be most interested to hear your thoughts.

I'd love to find out that there is some grounds for appealing this decision, so that we can find an instance in order to exploit that weakness and get it overturned.

Unless, that is, it's decided that community schools are what people prefer. In which case: nevermind!

[prolesunited]

24. I think it really depends

on which community you live in. Of course the people with the most money have the upper hand in this situation. Thank you for bringing this up. It certainly is a perspective worth considering.

[redqueen]

26. I think it's critically important

because here in TX we recently decided that our shcools are segregated and that's just fine with us. Quite sad.

I was one of those students who rode the bus to attend an inner-city magnet and thought it was a wonderful experience. Since most won't get into those magnets, that workaround doesn't have much chance of affecting the vast disparity in the racial makeup or economic status of the children in our schools.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[prolesunited]

14. Yes, let's return to "good old days"

Why are you posting this RW crap here?

You want to talk about judicial activism?!?! If it weren't for SCOTUS intervening from the bench, your boy-king Bush wouldn't be in office right now. Do you see the hypocrisy in that?!?!? :mad:

[dpt223]

15. classism

America is becoming less separated by race and more divided by class.

[prolesunited]

16. That was something a previous posted pointed out

Do you think they overplay the race issues to keep us divided? The lower classes far outnumber the wealthy elite and if we joined together, we certainly could make some changes in our system.

However, if you look at the demographics, I think it does show that there is racial division even among classes. Is divide and conquer one of the ways in which they stay in power. What can we do to change that?

[redqueen]

19. I believe 'they' do indeed play *any* divisive issue to their advantage

After all, as long as we're at each other's throats fighting over crumbs, they can continue to pilfer the cakes for themselves.

As far as ways to change it, I think it all starts at home. We all have to be on guard at all times so that we can avoid being manipulated. The issues they divide us with are emotionally charged so it's easy to get swept away.

Remember the 'stop asking questions about the berg video!' posts?

[ulysses]

21. more triangulation

However, if you look at the demographics, I think it does show that there is racial division even among classes.

I think so too, and that allows working class whites to be played off against working class minorities, in education as in so much else.

What can we do to change that?

It's a long road. I think/hope that the overall trend is in our favor, as more interaction between social groups happens every day, but we can't afford to just wait for nature to take its course. One of the great unrealized promises of the Clinton administration was the "national dialogue on race" - maybe it was just so much Polyanna crap anyway. I think it's up to us, person by person.

[ulysses]

17. yes and yes. n/t

[redqueen]

18. Awww uly, are you too busy to offer us more?

I always appreciate reading the opinions of all the educators on this board... a little more please? :)

[ulysses]

23. not too busy

I'm just not even sure what to say any more without sliding into incomprehensible rant mode. I don't believe in political solutions to the problem any more - there's not a national politician in the country with the conviction to put the needed resources into the thing, and I don't see that changing until people demand more.

I think we absolutely are backsliding in view of the Brown anniversary. If the haves/have nots divide now is class-based, that class division still has a sharp urban/racial tinge. It only takes a short drive north of Atlanta to see the disparity between the schools in the wealthy and largely white suburbs and the schools intown.

[redqueen]

25. I'm sure it woulnd't be incomprehensible

Rant or not I'd be interested to hear it.

I am starting to agree with you that it will take the people demanding more in order for anything to change, but it seems the people are so numb with all the outrages in every area of our lives lately that they just tune out.

Here in TX there's a huge battle over school financing. The plan currently being considered would necessitate drastic cuts and it just really bothers me that this isn't more important to people. I guess there are more than just parents of school age children out there but hell! The kids coming out of these schools will be running the country sooner than many think... it's so depressing.

The income division is a big, big, big problem to me, and I was *extrememly* happy to see Kerry address the issue yesterday.