CQR Race and Education · 724 CQ Researcher Those students incr easingly are concentrated in urban centers or la rge - ly Latino neighborhoods. The change has been most significant

Race and EducationAre U.S. schools becoming resegregated?

American public education underwent a profound

transformation in the second half of the 20th cen-

tury. Spurred by the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in

Brown v. Board of Education that separate schools

for black and white students are “inherently unequal,” schools were

integrated to a degree unknown in the nation’s history. But in the

1980s a more conservative high court limited the impact of deseg-

regation orders, and judges began releasing many school districts

from court-ordered desegregation plans. Critics say the resulting

changes have led to resegregation in schools that threatens to limit

the educational opportunities of poorer, minority students and

undermines racial understanding. But other analysts say the problem

is overstated or that claims of resegregation unfairly imply that

minority children cannot achieve academically unless they are in

the same classroom with white students. The debate surrounding

school integration and equal access to quality education is likely to

play an important role in shaping the future of American society.

Students crack up during a dodgeball game atBunnell High School in Stratford, Conn., on March 30, 2012. The school has beenracially integrated by busing in minority students from other neighborhoods.

CQ Researcher • Sept. 5, 2014 • www.cqresearcher.comVolume 24, Number 31 • Pages 721-744

RECIPIENT Of SOCIETY Of PROfESSIONAL JOURNALISTS AwARD fOR

EXCELLENCE � AmERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION SILvER GAvEL AwARD

I

N

S

I

D

E

THE ISSUES ....................723

BACKGROUND ................729

CHRONOLOGY ................731

CURRENT SITUATION ........735

AT ISSUE........................737

OUTLOOK ......................739

BIBLIOGRAPHY ................742

THE NEXT STEP ..............743

THISREPORT

Published by CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc. www.cqresearcher.com

722 CQ Researcher

THE ISSUES

723 • Has court-ordered schooldesegregation been effective?• Have charter schools andschool-choice laws increasedracial separation?• Have teacher-tenure rulescontributed to racial disparitiesin education?

BACKGROUND

729 Legal SegregationSchools separated by racewere legal in many statesbefore 1954.

730 Brown v. Board of Educa-tion RulingIn the landmark 1954 case,the Supreme Court saidracially separate schools are“inherently unequal.”

732 Desegregation AfterBrownSchool integration increasedafter Congress passed theCivil Rights Act of 1964.

733 Integration DeclinesBusing to desegregate schoolstriggered strong resistance.

CURRENT SITUATION

735 Education ChallengesDebates about racial equitytoday center on testing, teachertenure and school choice.

738 Enforcing Civil RightsThe Obama administrationhas focused on racial in-equality in education.

738 State ActionTwelve states increased supportfor charters in 2013.

OUTLOOK

739 Changes Coming?The majority white U.S. popu-

lation is expected to disappearby mid-century.

SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS

724 South Has High Concen-tration of Poor StudentsCivil rights advocates say manyschools are segregated bypoverty as well as race.

725 Percentage of HispanicStudents Riseswhite and black enrollmentfell from 1999 to 2012, asHispanic rolls jumped 8 points.

728 Public School IntegrationPeaked in 1988The share of black studentsattending majority-whiteschools has fallen steadily.

731 ChronologyKey events since 1954.

732 Charter Schools’ Perfor-mance Varies“Charter schools are benefitinglow-income, disadvantagedstudents,” says the director ofStanford’s Center for Researchon Education Outcomes.

734 Louisville Schools Strive toIntegrateIn 2007 the Supreme Courtstruck down the school sys-tem’s desegregation plan.

737 At Issue:Are U.S. schools becomingresegregated?

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

741 For More InformationOrganizations to contact.

742 BibliographySelected sources used.

743 The Next StepAdditional articles.

743 Citing CQ ResearcherSample bibliography formats.

RACE AND EDUCATION

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Race and Education

THE ISSUESC entral High School in

Tuscaloosa, Ala., oncewas considered a na-

tional example of successfulschool desegregation. Creat-ed in 1979 after a federaljudge ordered the city’s twosegregated high schools tomerge, Central High had anintegrated student body thatwon state academic and ath-letic competitions. 1

The court order, and oth-ers like it elsewhere, stemmedfrom the U.S. Supreme Court’slandmark 1954 Brown v.Board of Education ruling,which held unanimously thatseparate schools for blacksand whites are “inherentlyunequal.”

Central High was not with-out problems, partly becauseit was large and partly be-cause of persistent claims thatblack and white students wereheld to different academic ex-pectations.

“But despite these chal-lenges, large numbers of blackstudents studied the samerobust curriculum as white students,and students of both races mixed peace-fully and thrived,” according to re-porter Nikole Hannah-Jones, who wrotea lengthy study of Central High’s his-tory for the nonprofit investigativejournalism site ProPublica. 2

However, after a federal judge re-leased the school district from its de-segregation order in 2000 — sayingfederal oversight no longer was deemednecessary — Tuscaloosa dramaticallyreorganized its school system, partlyin an effort to keep white familiesfrom leaving, a phenomenon knownas “white flight.” Two new high schoolswere created, and Central High’s atten-

dance zone was redrawn to encompassjust the city’s African-American westend. The student population, onceabout a third white, is now 99 per-cent black. 3

The changes in Central High andthe Tuscaloosa school system are ex-amples of what many education ex-perts have described as the resegre-gation of U.S. public schools.

School integration peaked in 1988and has been declining ever since, ac-cording to a study published in mayby the Civil Rights Project at the Uni-versity of California, Los Angeles(UCLA). In 2011, only 23.2 percent ofblack students attended schools in

which a majority of studentswere white — a smaller per-centage than in 1968. 4 (Seegraph, p. 728.) moreover, thestudy found that resegrega-tion is occurring in schoolsacross the country. Since 1991,“all regions have experiencedan increase in the percent-age of black students in 90-100 percent minority schools,”a common definition of ahighly segregated school. 5

Some analysts have calledU.S. public schools withoverwhelming minority pop-ulations “apartheid schools,”likening them to schools inSouth Africa in 1948-1994,when racial segregation wasofficially mandated nation-wide. 6 But other observers saythe idea that U.S. schools areresegregating is overstated orthat many of the changes arelargely a reflection of the coun-try’s shifting demographics asthe white population shrinks asa share of the whole. 7

The increasing concentra-tion of minorities in someschools also has spurred con-cern about the disparity inresources available to affluent

and poor schools, which often havesignificant minority populations, andabout the quality of education re-ceived by minority students.

The Civil Rights Project study alsofound that Latino students, particularlymexican-Americans, are significantlymore racially isolated than in the1960s. This has been largely spurred bythe rapid growth of the Latino popu-lation, according to scholars, whichhas dramatically affected public schools.from 1968 to 2011, white enrollmentin public schools fell by 28 percent,while black enrollment climbed 19 per-cent and Latino enrollment rose by astunning 495 percent. 8

BY REED KARAIM

Getty Im

ages/The

LIFE Im

ages Collection/Carl Iwasaki

Linda Brown (left) with her parents, Leola and Oliver,and her little sister Terry Lynn stand in front of theirhouse in Topeka, Kan., in 1954, the year the U.S.

Supreme Court ruled in the Brown v. Board of Educationcase that separate schools for black and white childrenare “inherently unequal.” The Browns sued the KansasBoard of Education when Linda wasn’t allowed to attend a nearby school because she was black.

724 CQ Researcher

Those students increasingly areconcentrated in urban centers or large-ly Latino neighborhoods. The changehas been most significant in the west,where integration of whites and Lati-nos had been substantial in the 1960s,but has declined significantly since. 9

“There’s no doubt school segrega-tion is increasing in terms of declin-ing contact between African-Americanand Latino students and white students— it’s been happening for nearly aquarter of a century for black students,for half a century for Latino students,”says Gary Orfield, co-director of theUCLA Civil Rights Project.

He and other scholars see a com-bination of factors at play, starting withthe termination of many court-ordereddesegregation plans that followed aconservative tilt in the federal courtsin the 1980s and ’90s. 10 (See back-

ground, p. 733.) They also cite thegrowth of charter schools and the schoolchoice movement, which they say leadsto economic and racial separation.

Other analysts say Orfield and oth-ers have exaggerated the shift towardgreater racial imbalance in schools,and that the imbalance may be re-versing. In a 2013 study of trends in350 metropolitan areas from 1993 to2009, two university researchers foundthat “worsening segregation over the1990s has given way to a period ofmodest integration among all racial/ethnic groups since 1998.” 11 Howev-er, they added, reintegration has beenmost modest in the South and in citieswith large increases in racial or eth-nic diversity.

Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom,conservative scholars who have writ-ten extensively on race relations, say

characterizing schools with heavy blackor Hispanic populations as segregat-ed is “a gross misuse of the term.”Segregation referred to laws that setup separate school systems for whiteand black students during the so-called Jim Crow era — from the late1800s until the 1960s — when African-Americans were restricted to separaterestaurants, water fountains, bath-rooms and schools — and to the backof public buses. 12

Today’s public schools remain farmore diverse than before integration,the Thernstroms say, and the growthin the percentage of schools with amostly minority population is largelythe result of the growth of U.S. mi-nority populations. “The promise ofBrown v. Board of Education has beenfulfilled. Nothing resembling the JimCrow South has re-emerged, and itnever will,” the couple wrote in an ar-ticle commemorating the 60th an-niversary of the Brown decision. 13

most court-ordered desegregationoccurred in the South, and Orfield andother analysts emphasize that the re-gion’s schools are more integratedthan before the process began. “You’renot moving back to pre-Brown lev-els where white kids and black kidsaren’t allowed to go to the sameschools, you’re moving back tosomething in between,” says SeanReardon, an education professor spe-cializing in poverty and inequality ofeducation at California’s StanfordUniversity.

In sharp contrast to the years be-fore court-ordered school desegrega-tion, the Northeast now has the high-est concentration of black students inschools with a 90- to 100-percent mi-nority population. 14 In fact, New Yorkstate now has the nation’s most seg-regated schools, led by New York City,with its stark neighborhood disparitiesin race and income. 15

“Segregation is typically segregationby both race and poverty,” the CivilRights Project noted. 16

RACE AND EDUCATION

25-35%35.1-45%45.1-55%55.1-65%Greater than 65%

Alaska

Hawaii

South Has High Concentration of Poor Students

The states with the highest proportions of low-income students — as measured by those receiving free or reduced-price school lunches — are primarily in the South. Civil rights advocates say schools often become segregated according to poverty rates as well as race.

N.Y.

Ohio

Texas

Va.

Minn.

Iowa

Mo.

Calif.

Nev.

Ore.

Colo.

Wash.

Idaho

Mont.

Utah

Ariz. N.M.

Wyo.

N.D.

S.D.

Okla. Ark.

La.

Ill.

Miss.

Tenn.

Ga.

Conn.

Mass.

R.I.

MaineVt.

W.Va. N.J.

Del.

Md.

Ala.

Fla.

Wis.

Mich.

Ind.

N.C.

S.C.

N.H.

Kan.Ky.

D.C.

Neb.Pa.

Source: “Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey,” National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), U.S. Department of Education, 2010-11 and 2011-12, http://tinyurl.com/lwuxfpf

Percentage of Students Receiving Free/Reduced-Price Lunch(2010-2011, by State)


Some critics blame teacher tenurerules, which can make it more diffi-cult to fire underperforming teachers,for some of the educational disad-vantages experienced by minorityand poor students. But other ana-lysts say the real problem is stateand local school financing, whichusually is based on property taxes,leaving schools in poorer neighbor-hoods underfunded.

The teacher tenure issue came be-fore a California court in June whenStudents matter, an educational reformgroup founded by Silicon valley en-trepreneur David welch, backed alawsuit on behalf of Beatriz vergaraand eight other California studentsagainst the state’s laws governing teacherjob security. Los Angeles SuperiorCourt Judge Rolf m. Treu ruled thelaws unconstitutional, saying they un-duly harm poor and minority students.Appeals are expected to continue foryears. 17

An underlying question concerningracial separation in schools is howmuch integration benefits students. Sev-eral studies have found educationalbenefits for minority students in mixedclassrooms, but some conservativescholars dispute their methodology andconsider the results mixed.

Orfield believes the results are clear.“Lots of data shows that there’s basi-cally no risk for middle-class kids togo to integrated schools, but there isa gain for poorer kids,” he says. Heand other educators say there are alsoless easily quantifiable benefits for allchildren.

“You understand each other better.You understand your society better.You understand how to think in amore complex way because you’remore exposed to alternative views,”he says. “All these things are relatedto diversity.”

As scholars and analysts considerthe impact of the changing racial com-position of U.S. schools, here are someof the questions they are debating:

Was court-ordered school deseg-regation effective?

Before the Supreme Court ruled in1954 that separate schools were in-herently unequal, segregation was thelaw throughout the South and in someNorthern and western states. No blackchildren in the South were enrolledin predominantly white schools. Butby 1988, nearly 44 percent of all African-American students attending Southernschools were in majority-white schools,and the region’s schools had becomethe most integrated in the country. 18

Despite the retreat over the lasttwo decades, the region remains moreintegrated than the rest of the nation,and several analysts point to that asproof that court-ordered desegrega-tion had a lasting impact. “for me,that’s a huge legacy, particularly inthe South,” says Erica frankenberg,an assistant professor of educationpolicy studies at Pennsylvania StateUniversity in State College. “Still today,it’s the most desegregated area. That’sa great sign of progress.”

But Richard Rothstein, an authorand research associate at the Eco-

nomic Policy Institute, a washingtonthink tank that studies issues affectinglow- and middle-income people, saysthe retreat from the high point of de-segregation was inevitable without aneffort to address the underlying reasonsblack and white children went to dif-ferent schools: housing discriminationand economic inequality.

Brown “changed things temporari-ly, but attempting to deal with schooldesegregation without addressing thesegregation of neighborhoods in whichschools are located is bound to fail.It can’t succeed,” says Rothstein. Headds that after lawyer Thurgood mar-shall, who would later join the SupremeCourt, won the Brown case on behalfof the National Association for the Ad-vancement of Colored People (NAACP),he said the group would turn its at-tention to housing. “Had they pursuedhousing desegregation, they wouldhave accomplished more than they didby pursuing school desegregation,”Rothstein concludes.

Dennis Parker, director of the RacialJustice Program at the American CivilLiberties Union (ACLU), shares others’

Percentage of Hispanic Students Rises

As a percentage of total public student enrollment — including charters — white and black enrollment fell between the 1999 and 2012 school years, while Hispanic enrollment rose by nearly 8 points.

Source: “Number and percentage distribution of public elementary and secondary students and schools, by traditional or charter school status and selected character-istics: Selected years, 1999-2000 through 2011-12,” National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, http://tinyurl.com/mzqay8l

Public School Enrollment by Race(1999-2000 and 2011-12)

(share of total enrollment)

010203040506070

80%

AmericanIndian/

Alaska Native

Asian/Pacific

Islander

HispanicBlackWhite

1999-20002011-12

61.8%51.7%

17.1%15.8% 15.9%23.7%

4.1%5.1% 1.2%1.1%

726 CQ Researcher

frustration at what they see as the lim-ited benefits of court-ordered deseg-regation. However, he says, “when peo-ple say desegregation didn’t workbecause we still have an achievementgap [between races] or because wedidn’t address economic or housingdiscrimination, I think that’s an unfairburden to place on a single kind oflitigation — the burden of addressingthe whole range of racial problemsthat bedevil the United States. . . .Brown ended the system of apartheidthat existed in the United States, andthat is a huge thing. And for manystudents it created education oppor-tunities that weren’t there before, andthat’s a huge thing.”

However, william Jelani Cobb, anassociate professor of history and di-rector of the Africana Studies Instituteat the University of Connecticut inStorrs, views court-ordered desegrega-tion as ultimately a failure. The ideathat forcing schools to desegregatecould permanently change the educa-tional and social inequalities faced byAfrican-American children was naïve,he says.

“when we talk segregation, we mis-takenly think that it’s one thing. It’snot,” Cobb says. “Segregation is morelike a hydra, where you cut off onehead and two more rise.”

By inspiring white flight to suburbsor private schools, Cobb says, the rul-ing allowed racism and segregation totransmute into more complicated andinsidious forms. “we look at it now,and the way it’s operating is more so-phisticated, such that a Supreme Courtdecision would not change it,” he says.“It would have to be a much broad-er societal change.”

The academic performance of stu-dents — particularly minority students— in integrated schools is central tothe debate on the effectiveness of de-segregation. many educators cite ex-tensive research on the benefits of in-tegration. According to a 2014 studypublished by the National Bureau of

Economic Research, black studentswho attended a school under a court-ordered integration plan were morelikely to graduate, attend college andearn more money than black studentswho attended segregated schools. Theywere even healthier, on average, thestudy found. 19 The achievement gapbetween black and white students alsodeclined significantly during the heightof court-ordered desegregation. 20

Researchers point out that the re-sults were not caused simply by mix-ing races but also were tied to the shiftin resources that came with integrat-ing students of different races and eco-nomic classes. “School systems that hadspent a pittance on all-black schoolswere now obliged to invest consider-ably more on African-American stu-dents’ education after the schools be-came integrated,” wrote David L. Kirp,a professor of public policy at the Uni-versity of California, Berkeley. 21

But several conservative scholarshave criticized such studies. “I think thebenefits of racial and ethnic balancingare frequently exaggerated. . . . Just be-cause a school has a lot of racial andethnic minority students doesn’t meanit’s a bad school and doesn’t mean thekids there are incapable of learningjust because they don’t have enoughwhite kids sitting next to them,” saysRoger Clegg, a former Justice Depart-ment official in the Ronald Reagan andGeorge H. w. Bush administrationswho heads the Center for Equal Op-portunity, a conservative research andeducational organization in fallsChurch, va.

Terry Stoops, director of educationstudies at the John Locke foundation,a free market-oriented think tank inRaleigh, N.C., gives the Supreme Courtcredit for identifying a “very real prob-lem in society” — the inequality ofracially separate educational institu-tions. But he considers the educationalbenefits of integration to minority chil-dren unclear, although he says, “thereprobably is a larger societal benefit.”

more critically, he says the focus onracial numbers diverted energy fromwhat should have been the primarygoal. “I think racial integration becamean end unto itself, and there was afailure to focus on improving educa-tion, improving the quality of educa-tion available,” says Stoops. “So we’releft to wonder if the cost [throughforced busing and the disruption ofneighborhood schools] was justified.”

But Charles Clotfelter, an economistand professor of public policy and lawat Duke University in Durham, N.C.,examined the consequences of schooldesegregation in his book, After Brown:The Rise and Retreat of School Deseg-regation. He concluded it measurablyincreased inter-racial contact, prepar-ing students of all races and ethnici-ties for living in a diverse society.

“In the light of the large declinesin racial isolation, one is almost com-pelled to judge the policy a success,perhaps a great success, for the changesaccomplished in its wake were unde-niably significant,” he wrote. “Yet thatjudgment inevitably will be temperedby the failure of school desegregationto achieve more.” 22

Have charter schools and schoolchoice laws increased racial sep-aration?

The last 20 years have brought notonly a decline in racial integration inschools but also another significant shiftin public education: the rise of the char-ter school and school choice movement.

Charter schools, which can be start-ed by individuals, groups or compa-nies, are public schools that receivetaxpayer funding but are generally notsubject to the same rules and are freerto experiment with different approachesto education. The idea was developedby massachusetts educator Ray Buddeand first received significant attentionwhen it was proposed by Americanfederation of Teachers President AlbertShanker in a 1988 speech at the Na-tional Press Club. 23

RACE AND EDUCATION


Three years later, minnesota be-came the first state to pass a charterschool law. 24 Last school year, therewere more than 6,000 charter schoolsin the United States, enrolling nearly2.3 million students, according to theNational Alliance for Public CharterSchools. 25

The requirements for charter schoolsdiffer by state, and the schools take awide range of approaches to education,so generalizations are difficult. But alongthe Eastern Seaboard, many chartershave opened in urban cores where theyenroll predominantly African-Americanstudents. A 2010 study by UCLA’s CivilRights Project of charter schools in 40states, the District of Columbia and sev-eral dozen metropolitan areas found sig-nificant racial isolation among studentsin charter schools. 26

“we certainly see much higher ratesof racial segregation than we see intraditional public schools,” says PennState’s frankenberg, the lead author ofthe study. “And the important contextthere is that segregation in traditionalpublic schools has been increasingsince the 1980s, so it’s not like that’sa low figure.”

Charter school advocates counterthat studies have shown students inmany charter schools with predomi-nantly or exclusively minority enroll-ments are performing better than stu-dents in traditional public schools. A2013 study covering 26 states and NewYork City by Stanford University’s Cen-ter for Research on Education Out-comes found that “students in pover-ty, black students and those who areEnglish-language learners” who attendcharter schools posted the most im-pressive gains compared with theirpeers in traditional public schools. 27

Some supporters say these resultsrender questions of racial isolation in-significant. “If the education that chil-dren get in those schools is better thanif they had gone to one with a morepolitically correct racial and ethnic bal-ance, if the school is more rigorous

or offers the curriculum that studentswant, why does it matter that the racialmakeup is different than [some civilrights activists] would like?” asks theCenter for Equal Opportunity’s Clegg.

But charter school critics say suchresults can be misleading because somecharter schools cherry-pick their stu-dents, avoiding lower-achieving orproblem students, an option not avail-able to traditional public schools. “Somepush out students who threaten theirtest averages,” wrote Diane Ravitch, a

historian of education at New York Uni-versity and outspoken critic of the char-ter school movement. “Last year [2012],the federal [Government] Accountabili-ty Office issued a report chastising char-ters for avoiding students with disabil-ities, and the ACLU is suing charters inNew Orleans for that reason.” 28

The Civil Rights Project also foundthat in the west and parts of the mid-west and South, charter schools weredisproportionately white compared withtraditional public schools, suggestingthey may be expediting white flightfrom public schools where minoritypopulations are growing. 29

“Charters are either very white placesor very non-white places,” said myronOrfield, director of the Institute onmetropolitan Opportunity at the Uni-versity of minnesota in minneapolis.Charters are “an accelerant to the nor-mal segregation of public schools.” 30

However, Andre Perry, dean of theCollege of Urban Education at Daven-port University in Grand Rapids, mich.,a former chief executive of a smallcharter network in New Orleans, sayscharter schools simply reflect larger so-

cietal trends. “I just don’t see charterschools as this unique structure thatcauses resegregation,” Perry says. “Ifyou ask why schools aren’t integrat-ed, you have to look at housing pol-icy, tax policy, culture, a number offactors. It’s not school type that drivesour behaviors.”

The growth of charter schools isconnected to a broader school choicemovement that supports giving familiesgreater freedom to choose what schoolstheir children attend. Among otherthings, the movement supports tax cred-its or state-funded vouchers to helpstudents pay for private schools and

An old-fashioned tug of war energizes soon-to-be kindergarteners at a publicschool enrollment carnival at Garfield Elementary School in Washington, D.C.,on June 5, 2014. With traditional public schools in Washington losing students

to the growing number of local charter schools, school officials are stepping up efforts to recruit new students.

Getty Im

ages/The Washington Post/Linda

Davidson

728 CQ Researcher

open-enrollment laws that allow parentsto pick among public schools.

In 2006, Greg forster, a senior re-searcher for the friedman foundationfor School Choice, a think tank andadvocacy group founded by Nobel Prize-winning free-market economist miltonfriedman and his wife, Rose, reviewedstudies of school choice programs inCleveland, milwaukee and washington,D.C. He concluded that students wereusing vouchers to move to privateschools that were more integrated thantheir public school counterparts.

“Private schools have a much greaterpotential to desegregate students be-cause they break down geographicbarriers, drawing students togetheracross neighborhood boundaries,” hewrote. without vouchers, many fami-lies cannot afford private schools, but“vouchers overcome the monetary bar-rier, enabling private schools to makedesegregation a reality,” forster con-cluded. 31

However, a more recent 2013 studyby the University of minnesota foundthat the state’s open-enrollment pro-gram in public schools resulted ingreater segregation in minneapolis-St.Paul, the state’s major metropolitan

area. Under the open-enrollment pro-gram, more white students than stu-dents of color were leaving racially di-verse districts to enroll in predominantlywhite districts, the study found. 32

UCLA’s Orfield says the evidenceindicates that unless school choiceplans incorporate provisions to en-courage the economically disadvan-taged and minority populations to par-ticipate, they will inevitably favorpopulations that have the resources totake better advantage of all their op-tions, leading to disproportionatelywhite student bodies.

“we’ve learned what works in termsof school choice,” he says. “Getting outgood information to parents, having agoal of including all the different racialand ethnic groups, free transportation,which is absolutely essential, welcom-ing the kids into the school, all thesecan make choice into an integrated ap-proach. But if you just have choice, theonly thing you provide kids is anothersegregated school.”

Has teacher tenure contributed toracial disparities in education?

The Vergara v. State of Californialawsuit focused national attention on the

role that teacher tenure laws play in ex-panding disparities in educational op-portunity and achievement between theraces. Students matter, the education re-form and advocacy group, filed the suiton behalf of Beatriz vergara and eightother California students, who claimedthe state’s laws governing teacher re-tention and firing — tenure laws — vi-olated the state constitution’s guaranteeof equal educational opportunity.

Superior Court Judge Treu agreed,ruling that the laws “impose a real andappreciable impact on students’ funda-mental right to equality of education andthey impose a disproportionate burdenon poor and minority students.” 33

Treu’s ruling, however, has done littleto quell the debate. California teachers’unions, which strongly support tenure,vowed to continue the fight, and lengthyappeals are likely. Likewise, Studentsmatter and similar advocacy groupsare planning more lawsuits in otherstates. for instance, the group recentlyjoined a lawsuit in New York allegingthat teacher job protections meansome students receive an inferior ed-ucation. 34 (See “Current Situation,”p. 739.)

felix Schein, a spokesperson for Stu-dents matter, says the group was found-ed to improve public education throughlitigation but did not start out target-ing teacher tenure. However, it soonbecame clear, Schein says, that the sys-tem placed some children at a severedisadvantage.

California’s laws make it too difficultto dismiss underperforming teachersonce they have been granted tenure,he says, so administrators resort to whathas become known as “the dance of thelemons,” bouncing the worst teachersfrom school to school. Because the poor-est schools have difficulty retaining teach-ers, they too often end up with theteachers no one else wants.

“If you’re a poor African-Americanor Latino, you’re much more likely toget a chronically underperformingteacher,” Schein says.

RACE AND EDUCATION

Public School Integration Peaked in 1988

The share of black students attending majority-white public schools grew rapidly after 1964 — when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act — peaking at 43.5 percent in 1988. The proportion has fallen steadily since then, including in 1991, when the Supreme Court ruled that courts could terminate successful desegregation plans.

Source: Gary Orfield, et al., “Brown at 60: Great Progress, a Long Retreat and an Uncertain Future,” The Civil Rights Project, May 15, 2014, p. 10, http://tinyurl.com/n9cok4e

Percentage of Black Students inMajority-White Schools, 1954-2011

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In addition, “first in, first out” rulesfor retaining teachers, he says, meanthat younger, talented teachers are laidoff before teachers with more senior-ity, even if the senior teachers are per-forming poorly. Because schools withlarge minority populations are oftenin neighborhoods with limited finan-cial resources, this, too, affects themdisproportionately, Schein says.

“when you look at who was receiv-ing reduction-in-force notices, huge num-bers were being sent to schools that wereprimarily majority minority,” he says.

But Jim finberg, the lead attorneyin the Vergara case for the CaliforniaTeachers Association, the state’s largestteacher’s union, says teachers are beingunfairly blamed for problems over whichthey have no control. “There is anachievement gap in this country, but itis not caused by tenure statutes or thedismissal statutes, it’s caused by the factthat poor, inner-city schools are under-resourced, and higher-crime schools andthe teachers in those schools don’t getsupport,” he says.

Studies have shown that if a schooldistrict provides sufficient resources topoorer schools with high minoritypopulations and supports its teachers,it can close the achievement gap, fin-berg says. “You put your strongestprincipals in those schools and youwill attract good teachers and keepthem,” he says. “working conditions inschools are the single biggest factorwhen it comes to keeping teachers.

Jeff Seymour, a former school super-intendent in El monte, Calif., who tes-tified on behalf of the state, told thecourt that administrators engaging inthe “dance of the lemons” were notdoing their job, and there were otherways to deal with subpar teachers, suchas helping them find ways to succeed.

He defended teacher tenure, say-ing it gives teachers the job securityto try creative ways to reach students.“It also protects teachers who are goodteachers from arbitrary behavior onthe part of principals who come in

and may have a very set view of howa school should be run and are notwilling to look at the success of thoseteachers and make their judgments afterthat,” Seymour said. 35

But Bhavini Bhakta, an elementaryteacher who lost positions in fourschools over eight years, including ayear she won a school’s Golden AppleTeacher of the Year Award, testifiedon behalf of the plaintiffs that Cali-fornia’s “first-in, first-out” retention rulesdiscouraged young teachers. “I just feltlike no matter what work I did in theclassroom, or how hard I worked, noneof it mattered because the senioritydate mattered way more than howmuch I did for kids, or what princi-pals would say about me, or what par-ents would say about me, [or] my lovefor it,” Bhakta testified. “None of itmattered, nothing . . . all that matteredwas my hire date.” 36

New York University’s Ravitch, how-ever, has questioned the logic behindeliminating rules that protect senior teach-ers. “Is there any evidence that firingexperienced teachers raises studentachievement? well, actually, no,” Ravitchwrote in her education blog. 37

Yet a study by researchers at Stan-ford and the University of virginia inCharlottesville found that when NewYork City established a more rigorousperformance review before grantingtenure, the less-effective teachers left thesystem. fewer teachers at schools witha larger proportion of black studentswere granted tenure, prompting the au-thors to conclude that the change waslikely to benefit black students. “[It’s]likely replacement teachers will be moreeffective than . . . teachers who leave,leading to an improvement of teachingin these schools” said James H. wyckoff,a co-author and education professor atthe University of virginia. 38

Tenure rules also have been an issuein North Carolina, home to the JohnLocke foundation. Director Stoops saysreforming tenure law is “necessary, butinsufficient.”

He adds: “Even if you take awaytenure, the number of low-performingteachers who will be taken out ofpoor-performing schools is probablyrather low. we also need to look atteacher training, teacher recruitment,whether our [teacher licensing re-quirements] provide a barrier to indi-viduals in the private sectors.

“All these issues are intertwined inraising the quality of our teachers.”

BACKGROUNDLegal Segregation

T he separate educational systemsthat existed for black children and

white children across a swath of Amer-ica before Brown v. Board of Educationwere part of a larger system of legalsegregation. following the post-Civilwar Reconstruction Era, Southern statesre-established a system of white privi-lege using laws that separated whitesfrom people of color in schools, hous-ing, businesses and public facilities. 39

In 1892 blacks in New Orleans chal-lenged a law that required railroads toprovide “equal but separate accom-modations for the white, and colored,races.” 40 Homer Plessy, a black shoe-maker, agreed to be arrested for re-fusing to move from a seat reservedfor whites. The case made its way tothe Supreme Court in 1896, and in itsinfamous Plessy v. Ferguson ruling thecourt, with only one dissenting vote,held that “separate but equal” facilitieswere constitutional. 41

Twenty states eventually passed lawsseparating students by race. They in-cluded the Southern states of the oldConfederacy, several neighboring statesas well as wyoming, New mexico andArizona in the west. 42

most Northern states did not havelaws requiring segregated schools, but

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RACE AND EDUCATION

the races remained largely segregatedby custom and housing patterns. TheEconomic Policy Institute’s Rothsteinsays those housing patterns were inlarge part created, and continue to beaffected, by government policies that en-couraged segregation in housing, par-ticularly after world war II. for exam-ple, when Levittown, N.Y., the firstmodern suburb, was built on Long Is-land after world war II, many of thehomes were sold to returning veterans— but only white veterans. At the time,he adds, the federal Housing Adminis-tration would not insure mortgages toAfrican-Americans.

“most of the policy designed to seg-regate metropolitan areas came fromthe federal government,” says Roth-stein. And segregated neighborhoodsmeant largely segregated schools.

Brown v. Board of Education

I n the 1930s, the NAACP and thelaw school at Howard University, a

leading historically black institution inwashington, D.C., began a campaignto bring down the idea of separatebut equal facilities through a series oflegal challenges. 43

But the University of Connecticut’sCobb says black leaders settled onoverturning Plessy v. Ferguson only afterrepeated failures to get the United Statesto live up to the “equal” part of separatebut equal.

“There was a lot of ambivalence.The extended narrative is that African-Americans were eager for desegrega-tion, and that’s not entirely true,” Cobbsays. “They spent years on cases tryingto equalize [education]. They realizedthat was never going to get the resultsthey wanted. The idea was that theonly way you could prevent unequaleducation was to sit black kids next tothe white kids, but [integration] wasn’tthe first priority, it was equality.”

Continued on p. 732

Then and NowWhite students at Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., try to stopAfrican-American students from entering the school on Sept. 9, 1957(top). That year Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus forcibly resisted integrationin the state in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Boardof Education ruling in 1954. President Dwight D. Eisenhower called infederal troops to enforce school integration in Little Rock. More recently,police officers in Raleigh, N.C., forcibly removed a pro-busing advocatefrom a Wake County school board meeting on school busing on March23, 2010 (bottom). The board voted to stop busing students for diversityand took the first steps toward setting up a community-based systemof student assignment.

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Chronology1950s Supreme Courtdeclares segregated schools un-constitutional, but Southernstates resist integration.

1954In Brown v. Board of Education, theSupreme Court rules segregatedschools are “inherently unequal” butdoes not set a desegregation deadline.

1957After Arkansas Gov. Orval faubusforcibly resists integration, PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower deploysfederal troops to enforce the inte-gration, by nine African-Americanstudents, of Little Rock’s CentralHigh School.

•

1960s Civil rights re-form and school desegregationaccelerate.

1963An estimated 250,000 Americansrally for civil rights in the marchon washington, during which theRev. martin Luther King Jr. giveshis “I have a dream” speech.

1964President Lyndon B. Johnson signsCivil Rights Act of 1964, which pro-hibits discrimination based on race,color, religion or national origin andempowers federal government tosue to desegregate schools.

1969In a case concerning mississippischools, the Supreme Court de-clares its previous desegregationstandard — with “all deliberatespeed” — is no longer permissible,and the schools must desegregateimmediately (Alexander v. HolmesCounty Bd. of Ed.).

1970s Student busingspeeds desegregation, but latercourt rulings limit the reach ofdesegregation orders.

1971In Swann v. Charlotte-MecklenburgBoard of Education, the SupremeCourt upholds busing to integrateschools.

1973The Supreme Court finds thatDenver intentionally segregatedmexican-American and black studentsfrom white students (Keyes v. DenverSchool District No. 1).

1974In a Detroit case, the SupremeCourt blocks metropolitan-wide inte-gration plans, limiting desegregationof racially isolated urbandistricts (Milliken v. Bradley).

•

1980s School integra-tion peaks.

1986federal court finds that once aschool district meets certain condi-tions it can be released from itscourt-ordered desegregation planand returned to local control.

1988School integration reaches all-timehigh; almost 44 percent of blackstudents attend majority-whiteschools.

•

1990s A more conserv-ative Supreme Court makes iteasier for school districts toexit desegregation orders.

1991Emphasizing that court orders arenot intended “to operate in perpe-tuity,” the Supreme Court, in a caseconcerning Oklahoma City, makesit easier for school systems to fulfilldesegregation decrees. The Okla-homa City school system abandonsdesegregation and returns to neigh-borhood schools (Board of Educa-tion of Oklahoma City v. Dowell).

1995Supreme Court sets new goal fordesegregation: the return of schoolsto local control, saying judicialremedies were intended to be“limited in time and extent.”

•

2000-PresentStudies indicate schools havebecome more segregated;Supreme Court changes inte-gration rules.

2003Harvard’s Civil Rights Project findsthat schools were more segregatedin 2000 than in 1970 when busingbegan.

2004Nation marks 50th anniversary ofBrown v. Board of Education.

2007In a case concerning Seattle andLouisville, the Supreme Court rulesthat schools can no longer take astudent’s race into explicit accountfor purposes of integration (ParentsInvolved in Community Schools v.Seattle School District No. 1).

2014California judge rules teacher tenurerules violate state constitution bydenying minority and poorer childrenequal access to quality education.

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These challenges would finally leadto Brown v. Board of Education, whichthe Supreme Court decided in 1954. Ina decision that would transform Amer-ican society, the court ruled unanimouslythat segregated schools were unconsti-tutional. In his opinion, Chief JusticeEarl warren wrote, “we conclude thatin the field of public education the doc-trine of ‘separate but equal’ has noplace. Separate educational facilities areinherently unequal.” 44

However, the court did not immedi-ately set a timetable for desegregation.After more hearings, it declared in 1955that desegregation was to proceed with“all deliberate speed.” 45 The ambigui-ty of that directive led to protracted bat-tles over desegregation.

Desegregation

D espite the Brown decision in 1954,there was little immediate change

in the racial composition of school sys-tems across the South or elsewhere. Theyear of the ruling, zero percent of blackstudents in the South were in majority-white schools. By 1960, only 0.1 per-cent were. 46

with many Southern politicians vow-ing to preserve segregation, even smallchanges came with difficulty. In a partic-ularly high-profile incident, when ArkansasGov. Orval faubus used National Guardtroops to block integration of Central HighSchool in Little Rock in 1957, PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower deployed federaltroops to protect nine African-American

students from an angry white crowd asthey entered the school. 47

The number of integrated schools beganto climb in 1964, the year Congress passedthe Civil Rights Act, which outlawed dis-crimination based on race, color, sex, re-ligion or national origin in many facets ofsociety, including public education. 48

In 1969, the Supreme Court aban-doned its previous “all deliberate speed”standard and declared that schools mustdesegregate immediately. 49

Two years later, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg [North Carolina] Board ofEducation, the court upheld the busingof students to schools outside of theirneighborhoods as a tool of desegrega-tion, along with other potential remedies.

By 1970, a third of African-Americanchildren in the South were attending

RACE AND EDUCATION

Continued from p. 730

J udged by their numbers, charter schools are one of thegreat educational success stories of the last 25 years. In1990 there were no U.S. charter schools. Last school year, about 2.3 million students attended more than 6,000 char-

ters, and they now account for nearly 6 percent of all publicschools. 1

But since the charter movement began, that growth hasbeen accompanied by a heated debate about whether charterschools really do a better job of educating children than tra-ditional public schools. with charter schools flourishing in mi-nority, inner-city neighborhoods in Eastern cities and doing wellin mostly white suburban communities in the west and mid-west, the debate has relevance to questions of racial balancein schools. (See “Have charter schools and ‘school choice’ lawsincreased racial separation?” p. 726.)

Charter schools, which receive taxpayer funding like tradi-tional public schools but generally do not have to follow thesame rules, were intended to encourage innovation in educa-tion. while outstanding charter schools have existed from thebeginning, early studies found education quality varied widely.Some of the most credible studies found that charters performedno better or slightly worse, on average, than traditional schools,based on tests and other measures of academic progress. 2

Two new studies indicate charters have been making gains,while another indicates their performance remains on a parwith traditional schools.

The most comprehensive study, by Stanford University’s Cen-

ter for Research on Education Outcomes, compared the stan-dardized test scores of charter school students in 25 states andthe District of Columbia with the scores of similar students inthe traditional public schools the students would have other-wise attended. “The results reveal that the charter school sec-tor is getting better on average and that charter schools arebenefiting low-income, disadvantaged, and special educationstudents,” said margaret Raymond, center director. 3

The study found results improved compared with 2009, whenthe center conducted a similar study of 16 states. The earlierstudy found that only 17 percent of charter schools showedacademic gains significantly better than traditional schools, while37 percent showed gains that were worse. 4 The other 46 per-cent performed about the same as their counterparts. “The issueof quality is the most pressing problem that the charter schoolmovement faces,” Raymond said at the time.

In the new study, however, 25 percent of the charters werebetter than traditional schools in reading and 29 percent inmath. Nineteen percent of charters were worse for reading and31 percent for math. The study also found that African-Americanstudents and those living in poverty or who are learning Eng-lish made some of the most impressive gains. 5

Critics were quick to point out the largest share of chartersstill performed no better than their traditional counterparts. “Themessage here, no matter how it is framed, is that 20 years afterthe start of the charter school movement, even with all the pri-vate energy and public policy cheerleading it has engendered,

Charter Schools’ Performance varies“Charter schools are benefiting low-income, disadvantaged students.”


schools with a majority of white stu-dents. That percentage would continueto climb until 1988, when nearly 44 per-cent of African-American children wouldbe in majority-white schools. 50

By then, further court rulings anda shift in the American political cli-mate had set the stage for a slow re-treat from school desegregation.

Integration Declines

S chool busing for desegregation gen-erated strong resistance, and not just

in the South. Lengthy political and legalbattles were fought over busing in Seattle,Denver, Detroit, Boston and other cities. 51

In Detroit, the Ku Klux Klan blewup empty buses in the white suburb

of Pontiac to prevent them from beingused to integrate schools. 52 In Boston,African-American children arriving atnewly integrated schools were greet-ed by angry white mobs that tried toblock their entry. 53

President Richard m. Nixon, elected in1968, opposed forced school busing. whilevowing to uphold the law, he orderedadministration officials to work with schooldistricts to minimize busing. 54 Nixon alsowould end up filling four Supreme Courtvacancies by the end of 1971, makingthe court more conservative.

In 1974, the court established a limiton court-ordered busing that many an-alysts believe marked the beginningof the end of school desegregation inmany metropolitan areas and increasedwhite flight to the suburbs. In Milliken

v. Bradley, the court ruled 5-4 againsta Detroit desegregation plan that wouldhave bused large numbers of black chil-dren between the city and 53 separateschool districts in the largely white sub-urbs. 55 The ruling stated the suburbsdid not have to be part of a larger de-segregation plan because there was noevidence that they had violated the lawwithin their districts. It also emphasizedthe importance of local control of schoolsand said desegregation did not require“any particular racial balance in eachschool, grade or classroom.” 56

Civil rights lawyers continued topursue school desegregation cases inthe 1970s and ’80s and won victoriesin several cities, but in some casesthe federal government opposedthose efforts. 57

students in charter schools roughly perform the same as studentsin the rest of public education — not the leaps and bounds thatwere promised,” said Randi weingarten, president of the Ameri-can federation of Teachers, whose 1.6 million members includeabout 8,000 charter school employees. 6

Providing further support to critics, a comparison of test scoresin Chicago conducted by the Chicago Sun-Times and the medillData Project at Northwestern University showed little differencein performance between the two kinds of schools. 7

But a study of six major Boston charters found they weredoing significantly better in important measures of post-highschool academic success. Charters boosted the frequency ofAdvanced Placement test-taking, college entrance-exam scoresand the chances that students qualified for exam-based collegescholarships, the study found. 8

In conjunction with the Stanford study, the results indicatesuccessful charter schools are doing an above-average job ofeducating students, but vary greatly in student achievement. “Aswelcome as these changes are, more work remains to be doneto ensure that all charter schools provide their students high-quality education,” said Raymond. 9

— Reed Karaim

1 “National Data on the Public Charter School movement,” National Alliancefor Public Charter Schools, http://dashboard.publiccharters.org/dashboard/home.2 “America’s Charter Schools: Results from the NAEP 2003 Study,” The Na-tional Assessment of Education Progress, U.S. Department of Education, De-

cember 2004, http://tinyurl.com/3xark37. Also see “multiple Choice: CharterSchool Performance in 16 States,” Center for Research on Education Out-comes, Stanford University, June 2009, http://tinyurl.com/lz8nrh.3 “Charter Schools make Gains, According to 26-State Study,” Center for Re-search on Education Outcomes, Stanford University, June 2013, http://tinyurl.com/ox2p84b.4 “multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States,” op. cit.5 “Charter Schools make Gains, According to 26-state study,” op. cit.6 “AfT Statement on CREDO Charter School Study,” American federationof Teachers, June 25, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/mzz75hj.7 Darnell Little, “Charter schools show little difference in school perfor-mance,” The Chicago Sun-Times, April 7, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/lpkamw8.8 “Charter Schools and the Road to College Readiness: The Effects on Col-lege Preparation, Attendance and Choice,” The Boston foundation andNewSchools venture fund, may 2013, http://tinyurl.com/mz6v4qv.9 “Charter Schools make Gains, According to 26-state study,” op. cit.

Ninth-graders take a break between classes at Shastacharter public high school in Daly City, Calif., where the“blended learning model” lets students learn at their

own pace in a big, open classroom.

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In the 1980s and ’90s, federal judgesbegan to release school districts fromcourt-ordered desegregation plans, find-ing that they had achieved their ob-jectives. “Under the Reagan adminis-tration, there was suddenly an effortto close down these cases,” says Roth-stein of the Economic Policy Institute.“The Justice Department actually wentaround to school districts suggestingthat they move to dismiss cases.”

more than 200 large and medium-sized school districts were released fromdesegregation orders from 1991 to 2010,

according to a study by Stanford Uni-versity’s School of Education. 58

Once the schools were released fromthe plans, racial segregation rose, thestudy found. “There are some districtswhere you see a sudden jump in seg-regation after the release from the courtorder,” says Reardon, the lead re-searcher. “But the more common pat-tern is this sort of slow, gradual in-crease in segregation, in ways that are. . . consistent with a slow return toneighborhood schools and neighbor-hood levels of segregation.”

But some school districts workedto maintain their desegregation planseven after being released from thecourt orders.

In Kentucky, the Jefferson CountySchool District, which includes Louisvilleand surrounding suburbs, was releasedfrom its original court order in 2000. Butcivic leaders and school administratorsremained committed to desegregation,despite opposition from some parents,and implemented a voluntary student-assignment plan in an effort to maintainschool integration. (See sidebar, above.)

RACE AND EDUCATION

A t a time when studies indicate U.S. schools are reseg-regating, the efforts of Kentucky’s Jefferson County schooldistrict to preserve diversity reveal the challenges of

maintaining an integrated school system in today’s legal andpolitical environment.

Jefferson County, which includes Louisville and its suburbs,has more than 101,000 students from a wide variety of ethnic,racial and socio-economic backgrounds. 1 for about 7,000 stu-dents, who speak 107 different languages at home, English is asecond language, says Linda Duncan, a longtime school boardmember. About two-thirds of the students receive a free or sub-sidized lunch, and some 13,000 have no fixed address, she says.

School integration in the district began in 1975, when a federaljudge ordered the largely white county school system and largelyblack city system to consolidate to achieve greater racial balance.Amid angry protests by white residents, Jefferson County began bus-ing students to schools around the district to comply with the order.

By the 1990s, the system was considered the nation’s mostracially integrated. 2 But over time, white flight and other demo-graphic shifts made it more difficult for the district to maintainracial balance. In 1998, a group of African-American families suedthe district, frustrated that their children could not get into thehistorically black Central High because the school was strugglingto maintain the required ratio of white students. Two years latera judge released the district from its desegregation plan.

A 2012 study of U.S. school districts by Stanford University’sSchool of Education found that among the more than 200 dis-tricts that have been released from a court-ordered desegrega-tion plan, there usually was a return to racial segregation. 3 ButLouisville’s civic leaders decided they did not want to turn back.

“The desegregation plan actually had a lot of support in thecommunity,” says Sheldon Berman, who would become superin-tendent of the Jefferson County system a few years later. “It actual-ly created an attitude . . . about addressing race in an effective way.”

However, some families — still upset with the school choic-es available to their children — objected and filed another law-suit. In 2007 the Supreme Court struck down the Louisvilleplan in a landmark 5-4 decision. writing for the majority, ChiefJustice John Roberts said schools that never segregated on thebasis of race “or that have removed the vestiges of past seg-regation, such as Jefferson County” must stop assigning stu-dents to school explicitly on the basis of race. 4

Berman became Jefferson County superintendent two daysafter the ruling. The decision, he notes, could have meant theend of 32 years of school desegregation. Instead, Berman says,the school board initiated an intense community discussion, uti-lizing public forums, opinion polling and online surveys. Thedialogue established that most parents and community mem-bers favored a continuing commitment to diversity.

In a document titled “No Retreat,” the district outlined a newplan that no longer assigned students explicitly based on race.Instead, it created six geographic subdivisions, each with 12 to15 elementary schools, with diverse student populations basedon race, household income and adult educational attainment. Toattract a broad range of students from across socio-economicand racial lines, the plan called for converting several inner cityschools into magnet schools. 5

The plan won national recognition from scholars and themedia for finding a way to maintain diversity that didn’t vio-late the Supreme Court ruling. Daniel Kiel, a University of mem-phis law professor who specializes in race and education, calledthe plan “a model for districts seeking to capture the educa-tional benefits of diverse schools.” 6

But the plan had opponents, including a group of JeffersonCounty parents who sued to block it. families were upset withthe distance some children still had to travel, Duncan says.“Time on the bus was a big problem,” she says. Berman con-tends that discontent came primarily from some families in the

Louisville Schools Strive to IntegrateIn 2007 the Supreme Court struck down the school system’s desegregation plan.


That plan was struck down by a2007 Supreme Court ruling that de-clared school districts could no longerexplicitly take the race of students intoaccount when attempting to integrateschools. “The way to stop discrimina-tion on the basis of race is to stopdiscriminating on the basis of race,”said Chief Justice John Roberts, whowrote the majority opinion. 59

Roberts proclaimed the court’s deci-sion true to the spirit of Brown v. Boardof Education. Justice John Paul Stevens,who wrote a dissenting opinion, dis-

agreed sharply, saying Roberts’ decision“rewrites the history of one of this court’smost important decisions.” 60

Today, 60 years after the SupremeCourt’s 1954 ruling, many analysts seethe country retreating from its com-mitment to desegregation. “The bot-tom line is that children of color arestill far more likely to find themselvesin schools that are segregated by raceor ethnicity and are much more like-ly to be involved in schools with highpoverty concentration,” says the ACLU’sParker.

CURRENTSITUATIONEducation Challenges

T he debate about American pub-lic education no longer revolves

around integration as it did in the1960s and ’70s. Instead it is focusedlargely on standardized testing, school

district’s wealthier east side, who were unhappy with how theplan connected their area to poorer, urban neighborhoods.

The plan became a political issue in both the next mayoraland gubernatorial elections. The board finally decided on a re-vised approach, which Berman says he felt would leave thedistrict’s schools more segregated than he could accept. Hetook a job with an Oregon school district in 2011.

That revised plan, to be phased in over the next four years,creates smaller geographic clusters of elementary schools. Itwill allow more children to attend schools closer to home,Duncan says, but it will also leave schools in some poorer, mi-nority neighborhoods with largely minority populations.

Berman credits the district for not abandoning its effort com-pletely, but he is pessimistic about the future of integration inJefferson County and the nation as a whole. “without federalleadership we’re not going to make any changes . . .,” he says.“we’re back to a system that divides us.”

Duncan is more optimistic. “I think we’re maintaining theidea of having diverse schools,” she says. “I think we value di-versity, and we’re committed to it. But I think diversity is a lotmore these days than African-American diversity.”

wilt Elementary School, in southern Jefferson County, could beconsidered an example of that new diversity. Its student body is19 percent black, 60 percent white and 20 percent Hispanic, Asianor another race. The students speak 11 different languages. 7

Jefferson County is using a variety of approaches, including spe-cialized programs and high-achieving magnet schools, especially formiddle and high school students, to maintain diversity. But the sys-tem is complicated, Duncan says, and depends more on personalchoice. And while some schools are becoming less integrated, shesays, “I do believe we’re going to maintain diverse schools. I donot see us going back to segregated schools. No way.”

— Reed Karaim

1 “Data management and Research Department,” Jefferson County PublicSchools, http://tinyurl.com/m97vak7.2 Sarah Garland, Divided We Fail: The Story of the African American Com-munity that Ended the Era of School Desegregation (2013), p. 19.3 Daniel S. Levine, “Schools resegregate after being freed from judicial over-sight, Stanford study shows,” Stanford News, Dec. 5, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/a2a6ens.4 Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 551U.S. 701 (2007), http://tinyurl.com/72nzlyk.5 “No Retreat: The JCPS Commitment to School Integration,” Jefferson CountyPublic Schools, http://tinyurl.com/p3op4pw.6 Sheldon Berman, “Student Assignment Under Louisville’s 2008 Plan,” SchoolAdministrator, December 2013, http://tinyurl.com/k9g52qs.7 Lesli A. maxwell, “Ky. District ‘Keeps faith’ on School Desegregation,” Edu-cation Week, may 13, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/lzr5joo.

Louisville’s court-ordered desegregation plan “actuallycreated an attitude . . . about addressing race in aneffective way,” says former Jefferson County school

superintendent Sheldon Berman.

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RACE AND EDUCATION

and teacher accountability and thegrowing school choice movement.

Yet many of these issues continueto involve questions of racial equity,made more pressing by the changingU.S. student population. for the firsttime, the nation’s 99,000 public schoolsthis fall are projected to have more mi-nority students than non-Hispanic whites,according to the National Center forEducation Statistics. 61 Non-Hispanicwhites will still be the largest groupin schools, but taken together, othergroups will make up slightly morethan 50 percent of the school popu-lation. The second-largest group will

be Hispanic students, expected to makeup nearly a quarter of the population,while African-Americans will make upabout 15 percent. 62

The challenge to teacher tenure lawsalso appears to be gaining strength. InJuly, the advocacy group Partnership forEducational Justice, founded by formerCNN anchor Campbell Brown, announcedit was challenging New York City’s teachertenure laws in court, citing the effect

weak teaching was having on minor-ity and poor students.

“Often the teachers who are inef-fective end up concentrated in the mostdisadvantaged neighborhoods in thepoorest schools where the kids needthe most help,” Brown said. 63

Those comments echoed a key ar-gument used by Students matter, theadvocacy group that pushed its suc-cessful case against teacher tenure lawsin California. Students matter recentlyjoined the New York lawsuit and isconsidering initiating action in min-nesota, New mexico and washingtonstate, says spokesperson Schein.

The National Education Association(NEA), the nation’s largest teachers’union, has denounced the efforts asattempts by corporate interests work-ing to privatize public education byundermining teachers’ unions. 64 Cali-fornia’s teachers’ unions are appealingthe Vergara ruling.

“This will not be the last word,”said weingarten, of the American fed-eration of Teachers. 65

Students in poorer schools also facechallenges due to fewer resources whenit comes to taking standardized tests,which are used to determine bothwhether students are on track andwhether schools are succeeding. Statestandardized achievement tests becamea significant part of the American ed-ucation landscape with passage of theNo Child Left Behind Act in 2001. TheObama administration, which supportsstandardized testing to measure studentprogress and hold educators account-able for their performance, announcedin June that it would expand the useof standardized testing for special-needsstudents and Native Americans. 66

In a detailed analysis published inJuly in The Atlantic, meredith Brous-sard, a data-journalism professor atTemple University in Philadelphia, ex-amined the challenge faced by stu-dents in poorer schools taking stan-dardized achievement tests. She foundthat the testing companies publishtextbooks containing the answers andthe wording to express them mostlikely to be judged correct. But manypoorer schools cannot afford thosetexts, leaving their students and teach-ers at a significant disadvantage. 67

Opposition to standardized testing isgrowing. many opponents, such asfairtest.org and other groups, say thetests are racially biased. The NEAstepped up its public disagreement withthe Obama administration over testing inJuly, when it called on Education Secre-tary Arne Duncan to resign. 68

NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcíaharshly criticized the idea that teach-ers working in schools that can differwidely in resources and student de-mographics should be judged by theperformance of their classes on stan-dardized tests. “It’s stupid. It’s absurd.It’s non-defensible,” García said. 69

Public schools are financed withfederal, state and local funds. The fed-eral government’s contribution isabout 12 percent of expenditures, but

Continued on p. 738

Former CNN anchor Campbell Brown, founder of the Partnership forEducational Justice, announces the organization’s legal challenge to New YorkCity’s teacher tenure laws on July 28, 2014. The group contends that tenurefosters weak teaching that is having a negative effect on minority and poorstudents. “Often, the teachers who are ineffective end up concentrated in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in the poorest schools

where the kids need the most help,” she said.

Partnership for Edu

catio

nal Justic

e

no


At Issue:Are U.S. schools becoming resegregated?yes

yesDENNIS PARKERDIRECTOR, RACIAL JUSTICE PROGRAM,AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, AUGUST 2014

l ooking at the persistent isolation of students of color inAmerican schools, it is difficult to believe that six decadeshave passed since the U.S. Supreme Court condemned

legally imposed racial segregation in Brown v. Board of Education.After initial massive resistance to the court’s mandate, there

was a significant reduction in segregation, particularly in theSouth, where most school desegregation cases occurred. How-ever, more recently, ongoing discrimination and the effects ofcomplex institutional and structural bias have threatened thosegains, leaving the nation more diverse overall but with moreof its students confined to segregated schools.

In districts, primarily in the South, that experienced the greatestprogress in desegregating because of legal action, release fromcourt supervision has been accompanied by steadily increasingresegregation, beginning almost immediately after dismissal. Inthe North, housing segregation sustained racially segregatedschools, resulting in a concentration of the nation’s most segre-gated schools in Northern cities. As a result, an increasing per-centage of blacks and Latinos attend racially and ethnically seg-regated schools. Particularly disturbing: These segregated schoolsare far more likely to have a high poverty concentration.

Arguments that segregated schools are the benign result ofpersonal housing choices are wrong and dangerous. The legalban on segregation does not change the powerful forces thatcontinue to segregate students by race and ethnicity and iso-late students of color from equal educational opportunity.Government and private enforcers of fair housing laws havedemonstrated the continuing existence of housing discriminationand a range of other discriminatory factors, such as a longhistory of predatory lending, which have disproportionatelylimited the choices of people of color.

But regardless of the cause of segregation, its impact isoften devastating. All students are deprived of the benefits ofdiversity in education. But the deprivations associated withsegregation are most sharply felt by students who have beendeprived of opportunity historically. Students in racially, ethni-cally and economically isolated schools are condemned to in-stitutions with fewer resources, fewer experienced, certifiedteachers and more pressure on the schools due to the addi-tional costs associated with educating disadvantaged students.

Passively allowing the resegregation of U.S. schools unfairlydisadvantages the students who could benefit most from qualityeducation and disserves the nation as a whole. we owe moreto our children and to ourselves.no

ROGER CLEGGPRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL, CENTER FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, AUGUST 2014

n o child today attends a segregated public school. Notone. “Segregation” means telling children they cannotattend the same school as children of a different

color. It does not mean a failure to have socially engineeredracial balance.

It is true that there are educational disparities across raciallines, but racial imbalances in classrooms have little if anythingto do with this. Black children do not need a certain numberof white children in a classroom in order to learn.

The real reasons that racial disparities exist are ignored bythose who complain about “resegregation.”

when you think about it, a child’s environment has threemajor components — parents, schools and peers — and in allthree respects African-American children face more hurdles.They are more likely to grow up in single-parent homes, goto substandard schools and have peers who are, to put itmildly, unsupportive of academic achievement.

But the left is slow to acknowledge that out-of-wedlockbirths are a bad thing or that anti-“acting white” peer pressureexists. They will admit that substandard schools are a problem,but resist (partly because of recalcitrant teacher unions) themost promising reforms: competition among schools, merit payfor teachers and more choice for parents and children.

The only way to bring schools into the politically correctracial balance that the left wants is not by ignoring students’skin color, but by using it to sort, assign and bus them. Thisis flatly inconsistent with Brown v. Board of Education,which prohibited race-based student assignments.

In addition, there is no increase in racial imbalance inschools. In No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning,Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom conclude that “minority stu-dents are not becoming more racially isolated; white studentstypically attend schools that are much more racially and ethni-cally diverse than 30 years ago, and the modest decline in theexposure of black and Hispanic children to whites is solelydue to the declining share of white children in the school-agepopulation.” And race is no proxy for disadvantage.

Nor is there any validity in the left’s premise that more racialbalance means better education. To quote the Thernstromsagain: “The most sophisticated research on the subject doesnot find that having white classmates notably improves theacademic achievement of blacks and Hispanics.”

So forget racial bean-counting and focus on improving ourschools.

738 CQ Researcher

the amount provided by state and localgovernments varies widely by state. 70

In states that depend largely on localproperty taxes, significant differencesbetween wealthy and poorer school dis-tricts exist. wealthier districts can spendthree times as much per student as near-by poorer districts. wealthier states alsogenerally spend more per student. 71

Opposition to standardized tests isalso growing as some school districtsreject the use of the Common Core,a set of math and English languagestandards for students in kindergartenthrough 12th grade. Contrary to wide-ly held beliefs, the standards were notdeveloped by the federal government,but rather by the bipartisan NationalGovernors Association Center for BestPractices and the Council of ChiefState School Officers. However, theObama administration has supportedthem through its Race to the Top ed-ucation initiative, which aims to im-prove achievement by providingpoints toward federal grants for statesthat adopt the Common Core. 72

many conservatives oppose Com-mon Core because they believe it re-duces local control of education, whileother groups say the standards do notput the proper emphasis on certaintopics or areas of learning. 73

Enforcing Civil Rights

T he Obama administration gets mixedreviews on enforcement of exist-

ing school desegregation orders and ad-dressing racial inequality in education.

The ACLU’s Parker says desegrega-tion “has not been a priority” of the ad-ministration. “Criticism has been madethat programs like Race to the Top donot sufficiently take desegregation andracial diversity into account,” he says. “Itwould be useful if the federal govern-ment made those [issues] part of theirconsideration, so the schools receivinggrants actively encouraged integration.”

But Jim Eichner, managing directorof the Advancement Project, a wash-ington-based civil rights organization,credits the administration for its workin areas important to the organization,specifically harsher punishments, in-cluding arrests, handed out to studentsof color compared to whites for minorschool disciplinary infractions.

“I would certainly give them veryhigh marks on school discipline,” Eich-ner says. “They’ve really done a loton that.” The Justice Department hasworked with school districts to reformdisciplinary policies, he says, and ear-lier this year the Education and Jus-tice departments issued guidance onthe degree to which discrimination indiscipline violates the Civil Rights Act.

“It made a huge difference to havethe federal government say not onlyis discriminatory discipline a big deal,but it can be a violation of federallaw,” says Eichner. 74

On Aug. 19, the Los Angeles Uni-fied School District announced it willarrest fewer students in school disci-pline cases. A report by a civil rightsgroup last year found that Los Ange-les students were more likely to re-ceive a criminal citation for disciplineinfractions than students in Chicago,Philadelphia or New York. And otherstudies had found that black and Lati-no students were far more likely thanwhites to face harsh disciplinary pro-cedures in Los Angeles.

“we’re talking about schoolyardfights that a couple of decades agonobody would have ever thought wouldlead to arrest,” said Ruth Cusick, aneducation rights lawyer for Public Coun-sel, a nonprofit group that helped draftthe new policies. “The criminalizing ofthis behavior only goes on in low-income communities.” 75

In addition, the Advancement Pro-ject is mounting a campaign againstschool closings that the organizationclaims have disproportionately affect-ed students of color. “we’re also en-couraged that [the administration] has

recently agreed to look at the schoolclosing issue,” Eichner says.

Although hundreds of school districtshave been released from federal courtdesegregation orders, many orders arestill in place. Approximately half the al-most 500 school districts that were undercourt order to desegregate in 1990 hadbeen released by 2012, according to aStanford University study. 76

The Justice and Education departmentsdon’t actively track desegregation ordersand are uncertain how many are still inforce. “we didn’t even have records,” saidRusslynn H. Ali, the Education Depart-ment’s assistant secretary for civil rightsin President Obama’s first term. The de-partment is now asking districts to re-port whether they are operating underan order or desegregation plan. 77

An investigation by Politico, the po-litical news website, found that theJustice Department used its authorityto enforce desegregation orders to in-tervene in local decisions at least 43times during Obama’s first term. In acase in Beaufort County, S.C., the de-partment intervened when a nearly all-white charter school was about to open.A revised plan for student recruitmentand enrollment significantly boostedminority attendance. 78

The Justice Department also workedout an agreement with the Tucson,Ariz., school district to bring back amexican-American studies program lastyear as a step toward conforming witha court-ordered desegregation pro-gram. In a battle that attracted nation-al attention, the district had eliminatedthe program after the state, which saidthe program violated a state law thatprohibits ethnic studies, threatened towithhold funding. 79

State Action

T he movement to encourage char-ters and choice continues un-

abated, despite debate over whetherthey are of benefit to minority groups.

RACE AND EDUCATION

Continued from p. 736


An annual assessment released bythe National Alliance for Public Char-ter Schools found that 12 states in-creased their support for charters in2013, while three — mississippi, NewHampshire and Texas — raised or re-moved caps on the number of char-ter schools allowed. 80

States seem to be even more ac-tive this year. According to the Na-tional Council of State Legislatures’ on-line database, 28 states have alreadyenacted 71 new bills covering a widerange of charter school activities, in-cluding many that provide new fi-nancing options or make it easier forcharters to open. 81

fifteen states also enacted laws gov-erning other school choice measures,including several intended to expandthe use of school vouchers. But statesare not spending more on educationoverall. A study by FiveThirtyEight, sta-tistician Nate Silver’s website, found thatstate spending per student fell sharplyfrom 2007 to 2010 as a result of the re-cession and did not significantly recov-er from 2010 to 2012, the most recentyear for which data are available. 82

The reduced state education spend-ing, when combined with reductionsin federal support for public educa-tion that came as federal stimulusfunds ran out, led total school spend-ing to fall in 2012 for the first timesince 1977. The study found that urbandistricts have been particularly hardhit, with nearly 90 percent spendingless per student in 2012 than whenthe recession ended in 2009. 83

OUTLOOKChanges Coming?

m any experts believe the nation’sattitudes concerning race and

education could be changing.

when it comes to school segrega-tion, “if you draw a straight line fromwhat’s happening, it’s going to get worseand worse,” says UCLA’s Orfield.

But the public mood could change,he says, noting that the Supreme Courtis generally divided 5-4 on issues ofracial integration, so a change in onemember could return the court to itsearlier stance supporting more ag-gressive school desegregation and“bring the issue back to life.”

Penn State’s frankenberg is one ofseveral education experts who believea broader approach is needed to bringabout lasting change. “If we reallywant to [desegregate] our schools, weneed to make desegregation a moreessential issue and not peripheral,”she says. “But we also need to thinkabout desegregating other parts of oursociety.”

Also looking at segregation througha larger lens, the University of Con-necticut’s Cobb says, “The most per-nicious thing in our contemporary pol-itics as it pertains to race is theascendant culture of white grievance,”in which whites see themselves as vic-tims of pro-minority laws. As long asthat remains a powerful force in con-temporary politics, he says, “we’ll re-main exactly where we are.”

However, Cobb notes, desegrega-tion hit its stride during the era of civilrights reform in the 1960s, fed by protestsand activism among young people de-termined to change the system. Thatmass movement occurred only afterAfrican-Americans reached a level offrustration in which they believed theyhad no choice but to upend the sys-tem. He believes the nation could bereaching a similar moment as minoritygroups face a level of unequal treat-ment that leads to large-scale social andpolitical action.

But the Center for Equal Opportu-nity’s Clegg says that rather than fo-cusing on race, the future of educa-tion depends on continuing to openthe field to competition. “If we focus

on improving education and we forgetabout racial and ethnic bean countingand we refuse to see the challengesthrough the distorting prism of race,”he says, “then I’m optimistic.”

On the other hand, the Advance-ment Project’s Eichner says changes inthe U.S. population are likely to havea significant impact on the politics ofpublic education in the next fewdecades as the nation’s white majori-ty disappears before the middle of thecentury. Continuing high levels of im-migration and the rapidly growingLatino population, which has so farbeen less attracted to charter schools,will result in dramatic shifts in theracial composition of the school-agepopulation. 84

In addition, says Schein of Studentsmatter, “Changes in demographics bringchanges in policies. So there couldbe a dramatic change in the way pub-lic education looks in the next gen-eration.”

The ACLU’s Parker is encouragedby the ongoing public debate abouteducation. “I’ve been seeing more dis-cussions about how you can educatekids. I’ve been seeing more programsthat are designed to deal with issues.

“There’s more of a recognition thatthere is a real crisis in American ed-ucation, and so I’m hopeful we willfind a way to deal with some of thelarger problems in our education sys-tem that affect everyone, but particu-larly the inequalities and the way theyaffect some students,” he says.

“There’s a lot going on,” he con-tinues. “You have to be hopeful.”

Notes1 Nikole Hannah-Jones, “Segregation Now; InTuscaloosa today, nearly one in three blackstudents attends a school that looks as ifBrown v. Board of Education never hap-pened,” ProPublica, April 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/o7zoyox.2 Ibid.3 Ibid.

740 CQ Researcher

RACE AND EDUCATION

4 Gary Orfield, Erica frankenberg, et al.,“Brown at 60: Great Progress, a Long Retreatand an Uncertain future,” The Civil RightsProject, may 15, 2014, p. 10, http://tinyurl.com/n9cok4e.5 Ibid.6 Paul Tractenberg, Gary Orfield and Gregflaxman, “New Jersey’s Apartheid and IntenselySegregated Urban Schools: Powerful Evidenceof an Inefficient and Unconstitutional StateEducation System,” Institute on Education Lawand Policy, Rutgers University, October 2013,http://tinyurl.com/pdql4po.7 Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, “Brownat 60: An American success story,” The WallStreet Journal, may 13, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/nmq2wp8.8 Orfield and frankenberg, op. cit., p. 23.9 Ibid., p. 2.10 for background, see Sarah Glazer, “wealthand Inequality,” CQ Researcher, April 18,2014, pp. 337-360; and marcia Clemmitt, “In-come Inequality,” CQ Researcher, Dec. 3,2010, pp. 989-1012.11 Kori J. Stroub and meredith P. Richards,“from Resegregation to Reintegration: Trendsin the Racial/Ethnic Segregation of metro-politan Public Schools, 1993–2009,” Ameri-can Educational Research Journal, June 2013,http://tinyurl.com/qbpp3np.12 Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom, op. cit.13 Ibid.14 Orfield and frankenberg, et al., op. cit., p.18.15 John Kucsera, “New York State’s ExtremeSchool Segregation: Inequality, Inaction and aDamaged future,” The Civil Rights Project,UCLA, march 26, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/kl9ff48.16 Orfield and frankenberg, et al., op. cit.,p. 2.17 Howard Blume and Stephen Ceasar, “Cal-ifornia teacher tenure is struck down: Expectyears of appeals,” Los Angeles Times, June 11,

2014, http://tinyurl.com/mwoyl68.18 Orfield and frankenberg, op. cit., p. 10.19 Rucker C. Johnson, “Long-Run Impacts ofSchool Desegregation & School Quality on AdultAttainments,” National Bureau of Economic Re-search, may 2014, http://tinyurl.com/katral3.20 David L. Kirp, “making Schools work,” TheNew York Times, may 19, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/osmyh77.21 Ibid.22 Charles T. Clotfelter, After Brown: The Riseand Retreat of School Desegregation (2004),p. 7.23 Richard D. Kahlenberg, “The Charter SchoolIdea Turns 20,” Education Week, march 25, 2008,http://tinyurl.com/2fchqn.24 “fast facts: Charter Schools,” National Cen-ter for Education Statistics, http://tinyurl.com/m9o5nz5.25 “National Data on the Public Charter Schoolmovement,” National Alliance for Public Char-ter Schools, undated, http://tinyurl.com/meeq2cg.26 Erica frankenberg, et al., “Choice withoutEquity: Charter School Segregation and theNeed for Civil Rights Standards,” The CivilRights Project, January 2010, http://tinyurl.com/2bby5fs.27 “The National Charter School Study 2013,”The Center for Research on Educational Out-comes, Stanford University, June 25, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/nhrnlhx.28 Diane Ravitch, “The Charter School mistake,”Los Angeles Times, Oct. 10, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/ku7cjc6.29 frankenberg, et al., op. cit.30 Sarah Butrymowicz, “A new round of seg-regation plays out in charter schools,” TheHechinger Report, July 15, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/py6gbto.31 Greg forster, “freedom from Racial Barri-ers: The Empirical Evidence on vouchers andSegregation,” School Choice Issues, October 2006,http://tinyurl.com/mw24npu.

32 Cynthia Boyd, “minnesota’s new ‘white flight’:school open-enrollment program,” Minnpost,Jan. 11, 2013, www.minnpost.com/community-sketchbook/2013/01/minnesota-s-new-white-flight-school-open-enrollment-program.33 The complete text of the ruling is avail-able through the Students matter website:http://tinyurl.com/n225maa.34 Ben Chapman and Stephen Rex Brown,“California millionaire joins fight against teachertenure in New York,” The New York DailyNews, Aug. 6, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/l8dw22s.35 “Vergara Trial: Superintendent Jeff Sey-mour Supports Teachers,” California Teach-ers, march 28, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/kgwjzq7.36 Bhavini Bhakta on “Last-In, first-Out” Lay-offs — Vergara v. California Trial Day 7,”Students matter videos, feb. 14, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/klqol4m.37 Diane Ravitch, “what Do Celebrities andSuperstars Know about Teaching,” Diane Rav-itch’s blog: A site to discuss better educationfor all, Aug. 8, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/led4q8k.38 “Tenure Reform Increases voluntary Attri-tion of Less Effective Teachers in NYC, NewStudy finds,” Center for Education PolicyAnalysis, Stanford University, June 11, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/lmashlj.39 “Separate is not Equal: Brown v. Board ofEducation,” Smithsonian museum of Ameri-can History, http://tinyurl.com/37jyagd.40 Ibid.41 Ibid.42 “The Rise and fall of Jim Crow, Interac-tive maps,” PBS, http://tinyurl.com/n5hytmr.43 “Separate is not Equal: Brown v. Board ofEducation,” op. cit.44 “History of Brown v. Board of Education,”United States Courts website, http://tinyurl.com/o87rthw.45 Ibid.46 Orfield and frankenberg, op. cit., p. 10.47 “Integration of Central High School,” His-tory.com, http://tinyurl.com/mkqldy5.48 Ibid.49 “Brown v. Board: Timeline of School In-tegration in the U.S.,” Teaching Tolerance, aproject of the Southern Poverty Law Center,http://tinyurl.com/nyqlcq7.50 Orfield and frankenberg, op. cit., p. 10.51 James Brook, “Court says Denver can endforced busing,” The New York Times, Sept. 17,1995, http://tinyurl.com/k2pdtop; “Busing inSeattle: A well-Intentioned failure,” Historylink.org, http://tinyurl.com/lync9bt.

About the AuthorReed Karaim, a freelance writer in Tucson, Ariz., has writtenfor The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Smith-sonian, American Scholar, USA Weekend and other publica-tions. He is the author of the novel, If Men Were Angels, whichwas selected for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writ-ers series. He is also the winner of the Robin Goldstein Awardfor Outstanding Regional Reporting and other journalism honors.Karaim is a graduate of North Dakota State University in Fargo.


52 Sarah Alvarez, “How Court’s Bus RulingSealed Differences In Detroit Schools,” NPR,Nov. 19, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/omkwpuh.53 Delores Handy, “40 Years Later, BostonLooks Back On Busing Crisis,” wBUR, BostonNPR, march 30, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/mxrdbyo.54 Richard Nixon, “Statement about the bus-ing of schoolchildren,” The American Presi-dency Project, Aug. 3, 1971, http://tinyurl.com/lyz272n.55 Samantha meinke, “Milliken v. Bradley: TheNorthern Battle for Desegregation,” MichiganBar Journal, September 2011, http://tinyurl.com/mts2ssy.56 Ibid.57 “School Desegregation and Equal Educa-tional Opportunity,” The Leadership Confer-ence on Civil and Human Rights, undated,http://tinyurl.com/yfdcszy.58 Daniel S. Levine, “Schools resegregate afterbeing freed from judicial oversight, Stanfordstudy shows,” Stanford News, Dec. 5, 2012,http://tinyurl.com/a2a6ens.59 Linda Greenhouse, “Justices Limit the Use ofRace in School Plans for Integration,” The NewYork Times, June 29 2007, http://tinyurl.com/mlpv8yu.60 Ibid.61 “fast facts,” National Center for EducationStatistics, http://tinyurl.com/o26wtr. Also see“white students to no longer be majority inU.S. public schools,” CBS News, Aug. 10, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/mmjfjer.62 Ibid.63 “Inside City Hall: Campbell Brown & Keoniwright Discuss Teacher Tenure,” Partnershipfor Educational Justice, Aug. 6, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/myj8tp2.64 “NEA President: California ruling allowscorporate interests to trump students’ needs,”National Education foundation, June 10, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/ln7cbp7.65 “Teachers unions vow to fight Vergara de-cision, others celebrate,” The LA School Report,June 10, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/kv8a9sw.66 valerie Strauss, “Obama expands use ofstandardized tests for special-needs and Amer-ican Indian students,” The Washington Post,June 27, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/n9k77yf.67 meredith Broussard, “why Poor Schools Can’twin at Standardized Testing,” The Atlantic, July15, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/qhmnq4k.68 Leana Heltin and Stephen Sawchuck, “NEACalls for Secretary Duncan’s Resignation,”Education Week, July 4, 2014, http://tinyurl.

com/otmslxm.69 Jeff Bryant, “ ‘Stupid, absurd, non-defensible’:New NEA president Lily Eskelsen García onthe problem with Arne Duncan, standardizedtests and the war on teachers,” Salon, July 30,2014, http://tinyurl.com/qgy7cqz.70 “federal, State, and Local K-12 School fi-nance Overview,” federal Education BudgetProject, April 21, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/c9kadh5.71 Ibid.72 Amy Golod, “Common Core: myths andfacts,” U.S. News & World Report, march 4, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/kxw37dh.73 Ibid.74 for background, see Anne farris Rosen,“School Discipline,” CQ Researcher, may 9, 2014,pp. 409-432.75 Jennifer medina, “Los Angeles to ReduceArrest Rate in Schools,” The New York Times,Aug. 18, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/kst2yxq.76 Levine, op. cit.77 Nirvi Shah and maggie Severns, “60 years

on: Education, segregation and the Obamawhite House,” Politico, may 17, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/lumj4oz.78 Ibid.79 Ted Robbins, “Tucson Revives mexican-American Studies Program,” NPR, July 24, 2013,http://tinyurl.com/kyy5k9z.80 “New National Rankings find States AreStrengthening Charter School Laws,” The Na-tional Alliance for Charter Schools, Jan. 29,2014, http://tinyurl.com/mavgvuu.81 “Education Bill Tracking Database,” NationalCouncil of State Legislatures, www.ncls.org/research/education-bill-tracking-database.aspx.80 Ben Casselman, “Public Schools are Hurt-ing more in the Recovery Than in the Re-cession,” FiveThirtyEight, June 10, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/or5lws9.81 Ibid.82 “Census: white majority in U.S. gone by2043,” NBC News, June 13, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/m5pgahy.

FOR MORE INFORMATIONThe Advancement Project, 1220 L St., N.w., Suite 850, washington, DC 20005;202-728-9558; www.advancementproject.org/content/home. Civil rights organizationthat aims to help communities “dismantle and reform . . . policies that underminethe promise of democracy.”

Center for Equal Opportunity, 7700 Leesburg Pike, Suite 231, falls Church, vA22043; 703-442-0066; www.ceousa.org. Conservative think tank that promotes “acolor-blind society.”

The Civil Rights Project, 8370 math Sciences, Box 951521, Los Angeles, CA 90095;http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu. Seeks to help renew the civil rights movement bydeepening the understanding of issues related to racial and ethnic equity.

National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, 1101 15th St., N.w., Suite 1010,washington, DC 20005; 202-289-2700; www.publiccharters.org. Advocates for thequality, growth and sustainability of charter schools and maintains a national data-base of charter school laws and related information.

National Education Association, 1201 16th St., N.w., washington, DC 20036;202-833-4000; www.nea.org. Labor union representing teachers and other educationprofessionals; advocates for public education and teachers’ rights.

Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education, Lyndon Baines JohnsonDepartment of Education Building, 400 maryland Ave., S.w., washington, DC 20202;800-421-3481; www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/index.html. works to ensure equalaccess to education and enforces civil rights laws.

Students Matter, 325 Sharon Park Drive, No. 521, menlo Park, CA 94025;http://studentsmatter.org. Nonprofit founded by Silicon valley entrepreneur Davidwelch; sponsors litigation to promote access to quality public education.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

742 CQ Researcher

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Garland, Sarah, Divided We Fail: The Story of AnAfrican American Community that Ended the Era ofSchool Desegregation, Beacon Press, 2013.A veteran education journalist looks at the battle over de-

segregation at Central High in Louisville, Ky., initiated bysome African-American families who preferred to send theirkids to traditionally black schools, opening the door to theSupreme Court’s 2007 ruling that largely ended court-orderedrace-based desegregation.

Kluger, Richard, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v.Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle forEquality, Vintage, 2004.A Pulitzer Prize-winning author traces the history of racial

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Tatum, Beverly Daniel, Can We Talk About Race? AndOther Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation,Beacon Press, 2007.The president of historically black Spelman College exam-

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teacher tenure in California public schools, ruling, in part,that tenure laws put minority students at a disadvantageby saddling them with a disproportionate number of badteachers.

Cobb, Jelani, “The Failure of Desegregation,” The NewYorker, April 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/lxu86ct.A history professor and director of the Institute for African

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Hannah-Jones, Nikole, “The Resegregation of America’sSchools,”ProPublica, April 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/lxqnfsp.Part of an ongoing series titled “Segregation Now: Investi-

gating America’s racial divide in education, housing and be-yond,” this story examines school resegregation in Tuscaloosa,Ala., where the public school system once was consideredan example of successful integration.

Rich, Motoko, “School Data Finds Pattern of InequalityAlong Racial Lines,”The New York Times, March 21, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/k8stumj.The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has

found that racial minorities in the nation’s public schoolswere more likely to be taught by less experienced teachersand less likely to have access to advanced classes.

Shah, Nirvi, and Maggie Severns, “60 years on: Educa-tion, segregation and the Obama White House,” Politico,May 17, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/lumj4oz.Reporters examine the Obama administration’s efforts on

school desegregation and the current state of court-ordereddesegregation.

Studies and Reports

Orfield, Gary, Erica Frankenberg, et al., “Brown at 60:Great Progress, a Long Retreat and an Uncertain Future,”The Civil Rights Project, May 15, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/q8v3t6b.To mark the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark

desegregation ruling, Brown v. Board of Education, UCLA’s CivilRights Project assessed the current state of school segregation.

Reardon, Sean, Elena Grewal, et al., “Brown fades: theend of court-ordered school desegregation and the re-segregation of American public schools,” Journal of Pol-icy Analysis and Management, Fall 2012, http://tinyurl.com/met7hhx.In an analysis of more than 200 school districts released

from court desegregation orders, Stanford University researchersfound that racial segregation increased gradually once thedistricts no longer had to follow court orders.

Suitts, Steve, et al., “A New Majority: Low Income Studentsin the South and Nation,” Southern Education Foundation,October 2013, http://tinyurl.com/lc7le4l.A study by a nonprofit organization seeking to advance

educational equity and excellence in the South found thatthe majority of public school children in one-third of thestates were in low-income families, a dramatic increase inthe last decade.


Charter Schools

Hall, Heidi, “Charter segregation adds layer in Brown v.Board debate,” The Nashville Tennessean, May 15, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/nblt7wf.A Nashville charter school claims to be the first in the city

with a “truly diverse background of students.”

Klein, Alyson, “Federal Charter Measure Clears Hurdlein House,” Education Week, April 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/oer39vg.A House committee passed a bill encouraging states to open

more charter schools and favor admissions of minorities.

Williams, Jessica, “Jefferson officials deny Kenner char-ter’s expansion request, say school isn’t diverse,” The(New Orleans, La.) Times-Picayune, July 7, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/ls2ny2t.School officials rejected the request of a Louisiana parish’s

sole charter school to expand its enrollment because its studentbody is not diverse enough.

Resegregation

Gazzar, Brenda, “California’s Latino students among themost segregated in the country, says UCLA report,” LosAngeles Daily News, May 22, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/mk67xde.About half of Latino students and nearly 40 percent of

black students in California attend schools with white pop-ulations of 10 percent or less.

Klein, Rebecca, “Another Reason Why Segregated Edu-cation Is Bad For Young Students,” The Huffington Post,July 30, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/mcxbo6v.Black students in more integrated schools improved their

reading skills better than black students attending schoolswith minority populations of 75 percent or more.

Spielman, Fran, “Alderman warns of ‘re-segregation’ ofcity’s top public high schools,”Chicago Sun-Times, July 15,2014, http://tinyurl.com/paszaon.A federal judge’s 2009 decision to lift a 30-year desegre-

gation decree in Chicago’s schools has led to rising whiteenrollment at top schools, at the expense of black students.

Standardized Testing

Rich, Mokoto, “Delay Urged on Actions Tied to Tests bySchools,”The New York Times, June 10, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/ooo83l2.The Bill & melinda Gates foundation has asked states to

delay implementing new Common Core-aligned standardizedtests for two years to ensure test fairness and reliability.

Zezima, Katie, “More Parents Opting Kids Out of Stan-dardized Tests,”The Associated Press, Sept. 8, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/mbl44ok.more parents are removing their children from standard-

ized testing due to student stress, distrust of tests’ evalua-tion methods and narrow curricula and fear of corporate in-fluence.

Teacher Tenure

Bidwell, Allie, “Activists Take Teacher Tenure Battle toMore States,” U.S. News & World Report, July 9, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/kes32hu.Anti-teacher tenure groups plan to file lawsuits in New

York, Connecticut and New Jersey in the wake of a Cali-fornia state court ruling in June that tenure protections harmminority and low-income students.

McGuire, Kim, “California teacher tenure ruling is like-ly to be felt in Minnesota,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune,June 13, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/mbhje7g.California’s recent teacher-tenure court ruling has reignited

debate over the issue in minnesota, leading legislators tovow to resume state teacher tenure reform efforts eventhough Gov. mark Dayton vetoed a similar bill in 2012.

Tucker, Jill, “Lost in tenure debate: What makes teachersgood or bad?” San Francisco Chronicle, June 15, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/lgxqs78.California school districts are using more complex criteria

— beyond test scores and passage rates — to evaluate teach-ers in order to retain good teachers and better train thosewho are struggling.

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CQR Race and Education · 724 CQ Researcher Those students incr easingly are concentrated in urban centers or la rge - ly Latino neighborhoods. The change has been most significant