Many States at That Time Continued to Segregate Public Schools
Civics
Still Separate, Still Unequal: Teaching about School Segregation and Educational Inequality
Racial segregation in public education has been illegal for 65 years in the United States. Yet American public schools remain largely separate and unequal — with profound consequences for students, especially students of color.
Today's teachers and students should know that the Supreme Court declared racial segregation in schools to be unconstitutional in the landmark 1954 ruling Brown v. Board of Education. Perhaps less well known is the extent to which American schools are still segregated. According to a recent Times article, "More than half of the nation's schoolchildren are in racially concentrated districts, where over 75 percent of students are either white or nonwhite." In addition, school districts are often segregated by income. The nexus of racial and economic segregation has intensified educational gaps between rich and poor students, and between white students and students of color.
Although many students learn about the historical struggles to desegregate schools in the civil rights era, segregation as a current reality is largely absent from the curriculum.
"No one is really talking about school segregation anymore," Elise C. Boddie and Dennis D. Parker wrote in this 2018 Op-Ed essay. "That's a shame because an abundance of research shows that integration is still one of the most effective tools that we have for achieving racial equity."
The teaching activities below, written directly to students, use recent Times articles as a way to grapple with segregation and educational inequality in the present. This resource considers three essential questions:
• How and why are schools still segregated in 2019?
• What repercussions do segregated schools have for students and society?
• What are potential remedies to address school segregation?
School segregation and educational inequity may be a sensitive and uncomfortable topic for students and teachers, regardless of their race, ethnicity or economic status. Nevertheless, the topics below offer entry points to an essential conversation, one that affects every American student and raises questions about core American ideals of equality and fairness.
_________
Six Activities for Students to Investigate School Segregation and Educational Inequality
Activity #1: Warm-Up: Visualize segregation and inequality in education.
Based on civil rights data released by the United States Department of Education, the nonprofit news organization ProPublica has built an interactive database to examine racial disparities in educational opportunities and school discipline. In this activity, which might begin a deeper study of school segregation, you can look up your own school district, or individual public or charter school, to see how it compares with its counterparts.
To get started: Scroll down to the interactive map of the United States in this ProPublica database and then answer the following questions:
1. Click the tabs "Opportunity," "Discipline," "Segregation" and "Achievement Gap" and answer these two simple questions: What do you notice? What do you wonder? (These are the same questions we ask as part of our "What's Going On in This Graph?" weekly discussions.)
2. Next, click the tabs "Black" and "Hispanic." What do you notice? What do you wonder?
3. Search for your school or district in the database. What do you notice in the results? What questions do you have?
For Further Exploration
Research your own school district. Then write an essay, create an oral presentation or make an annotated map on segregation and educational inequity in your community, using data from the Miseducation database.
_________
Activity #2: Explore a case study: schools in Charlottesville, Va.
Image
The New York Times and ProPublica investigated how segregation still plays a role in shaping students' educational experiences in the small Virginia city of Charlottesville. The article begins:
Zyahna Bryant and Trinity Hughes, high school seniors, have been friends since they were 6, raised by blue-collar families in this affluent college town. They played on the same T-ball and softball teams, and were in the same church group.
But like many African-American children in Charlottesville, Trinity lived on the south side of town and went to a predominantly black neighborhood elementary school. Zyahna lived across the train tracks, on the north side, and was zoned to a mostly white school, near the University of Virginia campus, that boasts the city's highest reading scores.
Before you read the rest of the article, and learn about the experiences of Zyahna and Trinity, answer the following questions based on your own knowledge, experience and opinions:
• What is the purpose of public education?
• Do all children in America receive the same quality of education?
• Is receiving a quality public education a right (for everyone) or a privilege (for some)?
• Is there a correlation between students' race and the quality of education they receive?
Now read the entire article about lingering segregation in Charlottesville and answer the following questions:
1. How is Charlottesville's school district geographically and racially segregated?
2. How is Charlottesville a microcosm of education in America?
3. How do white and black students in Charlottesville compare in terms of participation in gifted and talented programs; being held back a grade; being suspended from school?
4. How do black and white students in Charlottesville compare in terms of reading at grade level?
5. How do Charlottesville school officials explain the disparities between white and black students?
6. Why are achievement disparities so common in college towns?
7. In what ways do socioeconomics not fully explain the gap between white and black students?
After reading the article and answering the above questions, share your reactions using the following prompts:
• Did anything in the article surprise you? Shock you? Make you angry or sad? Why?
• On the other hand, did anything in the article strike you as unsurprising? Explain.
• How might education in Charlottesville be made more equitable?
For Further Exploration
Choose one or more of the following ideas to investigate school segregation in the United States and around the world.
1. Read and discuss "In a Divided Bosnia, Segregated Schools Persist." Compare and contrast the situations in Bosnia and Charlottesville. How does this perspective confirm, challenge, or complicate your understanding of the topic?
Image
Some school districts have more money to spend on education than others. Does this funding inequality have anything to do with lingering segregation in public schools? A recent report says yes. A New York Times article published in February begins:
School districts that predominantly serve students of color received $23 billion less in funding than mostly white school districts in the United States in 2016, despite serving the same number of students, a new report found.
The report, released this week by the nonprofit EdBuild, put a dollar amount on the problem of school segregation, which has persisted long after Brown v. Board of Education and was targeted in recent lawsuits in states from New Jersey to Minnesota. The estimate also came as teachers across the country have protested and gone on strike to demand more funding for public schools.
Answer the following questions based on your own knowledge, experience and opinions.
• Who pays for public schools?
• Is there a correlation between money and education? Does the amount of money a school spends on students influence the quality of the education students receive?
Now read the rest of the Times article about funding differences between mostly white school districts and mostly nonwhite ones, and then answer the following questions:
1. How much less total funding do school districts that serve predominantly students of color receive compared to school districts that serve predominantly white students?
2. Why are school district borders problematic?
3. How many of the nation's schoolchildren are in "racially concentrated districts, where over 75 percent of students are either white or nonwhite"?
4. How much less money, on average, do nonwhite districts receive than white districts?
5. How are school districts funded?
6. How does lack of school funding affect classrooms?
7. What is the new kind of "white flight" in Arizona and why is it a problem?
8. What is an "enclave"? What does the statement "some school districts have become their own enclaves" mean?
After reading the article and answering the above questions, share your reactions using the following prompts:
• Did anything in the article surprise you? Shock you? Make you angry or sad? Why?
• On the other hand, did anything in the article strike you as unsurprising? Explain.
• How could school funding be made more equitable?
For Further Exploration
Choose one or more of the following ideas to investigate the interrelationship among school segregation, funding and inequality.
1. Research your local school district budget, using public records or local media, such as newspapers or television reporting. What is the budget per student? How does that budget compare with the state average? The national average?
2. Compare your findings about your local school budget to your research about segregation and student outcomes, using the Miseducation database. Do the results of your research suggest any correlations?
_________
Activity #4: Examine potential legal remedies to school segregation and educational inequality.
Image
How do we get better schools for all children? One way might be to take the state to court. A Times article from August reports on a wave of lawsuits that argue that states are violating their constitutions by denying children a quality education. The article begins:
By his own account, Alejandro Cruz-Guzman's five children have received a good education at public schools in St. Paul. His two oldest daughters are starting careers in finance and teaching. Another daughter, a high-school student, plans to become a doctor.
But their success, Mr. Cruz-Guzman said, flows partly from the fact that he and his wife fought for their children to attend racially integrated schools outside their neighborhood. Their two youngest children take a bus 30 minutes each way to Murray Middle School, where the student population is about one-third white, one-third black, 16 percent Asian and 9 percent Latino.
"I wanted to have my kids exposed to different cultures and learn from different people," said Mr. Cruz-Guzman, who owns a small flooring company and is an immigrant from Mexico. When his two oldest children briefly attended a charter school that was close to 100 percent Latino, he said he had realized, "We are limiting our kids to one community."
Now Mr. Cruz-Guzman is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit saying that Minnesota knowingly allowed towns and cities to set policies and zoning boundaries that led to segregated schools, lowering test scores and graduation rates for low-income and nonwhite children.
Read the entire article and then answer the following questions:
1. What does Mr. Cruz-Guzman's suit allege against the State of Minnesota?
2. Why are advocates for school funding equity focused on state government, as opposed to the federal government?
3. What did a state judge rule in New Mexico? What did the Kansas Supreme Court rule?
4. What fraction of fourth and eighth graders in New Mexico is not proficient in reading? What does research suggest may improve their test scores?
5. According to a 2016 study, if a school spends 10 percent more per pupil, what percentage more would students earn as adults?
6. What does the economist Eric Hanushek argue about the correlation between spending and student achievement?
7. What remedy for school segregation is Daniel Shulman, the lead lawyer in the Minnesota desegregation suit, considering? Why are charter schools nervous about the case?
8. How does Khulia Pringle see some charter schools as "culturally affirming"? What problems does Ms. Pringle see with busing white children to black schools and vice versa?
After reading the article and answering the above questions, share your reactions using the following prompts:
• Did anything in the article surprise you? What other emotional responses did you have while reading? Why?
• On the other hand, did anything in the article strike you as unsurprising? Explain.
• Do the potential "cultural" benefits of school segregation outweigh the costs?
For Further Exploration
Choose one or more of the following ideas to investigate potential remedies to school segregation and educational inequality.
1. Read the obituaries "Jean Fairfax, Unsung but Undeterred in Integrating Schools, Dies at 98" and "Linda Brown, Symbol of Landmark Desegregation Case, Dies at 75." How do their lives inform your grasp of legal challenges to segregation?
2. Watch the following video about school busing. How does this history inform your understanding of the benefits and challenges of busing?
3. Read about how parents in two New York City school districts are trying to tackle segregation in local middle schools. Then decide if these models have potential for other districts in New York or around the country. Why or why not?
_________
Activity #5: Consider alternatives to integration.
Image
Is integration the best and only choice for families who feel their children are being denied a quality education? A recent Times article reports on how some black families in New York City are choosing an alternative to integration. The article begins:
"I love myself!" the group of mostly black children shouted in unison. "I love my hair, I love my skin!" When it was time to settle down, their teacher raised her fist in a black power salute. The students did the same, and the room hushed. As children filed out of the cramped school auditorium on their way to class, they walked by posters of Colin Kaepernick and Harriet Tubman.
It was a typical morning at Ember Charter School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, an Afrocentric school that sits in a squat building on a quiet block in a neighborhood long known as a center of black political power.
Though New York City has tried to desegregate its schools in fits and starts since the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, the school system is now one of the most segregated in the nation. But rather than pushing for integration, some black parents in Bedford-Stuyvesant are choosing an alternative: schools explicitly designed for black children.
Before you read the rest of the article, answer the following questions based on your own knowledge, experience and opinions:
• Should voluntary segregation in schools be permissible? Why or why not?
• What potential benefits might voluntary segregation offer?
• What potential problems might it pose?
Now, read the entire article and then answer these questions:
1. What is the goal of Afrocentric schools?
2. Why are some parents and educators enthusiastic about Afrocentric schools?
3. Why are some experts wary of Afrocentric schools?
4. What does Alisa Nutakor want to offer minority students at Ember?
5. What position does the city's schools chancellor take on Afrocentric schools?
6. What "modest desegregation plans" have some districts offered? With what result?
7. Why did Fela Barclift found Little Sun People?
8. Why are some parents ambivalent about school integration? According to them, how can schools be more responsive to students of color?
9. What does Mutale Nkonde mean by the phrase "not all boats are rising"?
10. What did Jordan Pierre gain from his experience at Eagle Academy?
After reading the article and answering the above questions, share your reactions using the following prompts:
• Did anything in the article surprise you? What other emotional responses did you have while reading? Why?
• On the other hand, did anything in the article strike you as unsurprising? Explain.
• Did the article challenge your opinion about voluntary segregation? How?
For Further Exploration
Choose one or more of the following ideas to investigate some of the complicating factors that influence where parents decide to send their children to school.
1. Read and discuss "Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City." How does reading about segregation, inequity and school choice from a parent's perspective confirm, challenge or complicate your understanding of the topic?
2. Read "Do Students Get a Subpar Education in Yeshivas?" How might a student's religious affiliation complicate the issue of segregation and inequity in education?
_________
Activity #6: Learn more and take action.
Image
Segregation still persists in public schools more than 60 years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. What more can you learn about the issue? What choices can you make? Is there anything students can do about the issue?
Write a personal essay about your experience with school segregation. For inspiration, read Erin Aubrey Kaplan's op-ed essay, "School Choice Is the Enemy of Justice," which links a contemporary debate with the author's personal experience of school segregation.
Interview a parent, grandparent or another adult about their educational experiences related to segregation, integration and inequity in education. Compare their experiences with your own. Share your findings in a paper, presentation or class discussion.
Take action by writing a letter about segregation and educational inequity in your community. Send the letter to a person or organization with local influence, such as the school board, an elected official or your local newspaper.
Discuss the issue in your school or district by raising the topic with your student council, parent association or school board. Be prepared with information you discovered in your research and bring relevant questions.
_________
Additional Resources
Choices in Little Rock | Facing History and Ourselves
Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise | PBS
Why Are American Public Schools Still So Segregated? | KQED
Toolkit for "Segregation by Design" | Teaching Tolerance
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/learning/lesson-plans/still-separate-still-unequal-teaching-about-school-segregation-and-educational-inequality.html