The dilemma of inequality in the American education system in relation to race and poverty is critically damaging to the learning and cognitive development of poor and minority students. The more segregated a school is, the worse black kids tend to perform in school. For example, “black students in segregated schools tended to make smaller gains in reading than their black counterparts in more integrated schools,” showing how negative the effects of segregated schools are (Klein, 2014). These inequalities have consistently put this group of people at disadvantages in life throughout our history, even after their grade school education. Continuing to pretend that Brown v. Board fixed the problems of segregation in the U.S education system is detrimental to the progress of education in America, overall. It is fundamental that we address the racial issues that have caused the disparities in education between suburban schools, where the majority of students are white, middle class, and urban schools, where the majority of the student body is comprised of poor and minority students. Once these issues are understood, it will be easier to enforce policy to combat these disparities by breaking down school zones and allowing students to attend schools outside of their zones, providing busing for students in poor neighborhoods to attend schools in better neighborhoods, and creating overall, more inclusive school environments. These changes are necessary to cause meaningful effect in improving the U.S education system and in dismantling the current racist policies that are keeping minority students from receiving equal education to white students. If nothing is done about the inequality in the U.S education system, the U.S will continue to practice an unethical educational system that outcasts students of color.
Failing to recognize the racial history of education policies in this country will not allow our country to move forward, therefore, it is imperative that there is widespread education about the failings of Brown v Board, and the mistakes of other U.S Supreme Court cases. After a study conducted by UNC Chapel Hill psychologists revealed that black students who attended majority black schools were doing way worse in reading than black students is more diverse schools, the researcher stated, that “the study’s results indicate that policymakers should revisit the impact of segregation,” (Klein, 2014). In my previous paper on the history of inequality in the U.S educational system, I explained how Brown v Board failed its purpose of integrating schools in so many ways. Firstly, the case stated that schools had to desegregate “in due time”, which allowed the stalling of any actual integration in white only schools to occur and continued to let white people use fear tactics towards black people to keep them out of their schools. Secondly, the Supreme Court left the desegregation up to the states and allowed them to choose how they would like to go about desegregating. Southern states never wanted integration to happen, therefore their suggestions on how they would like to integrate their schools was useless. In a later addition to this case, once the policymakers understood that many townships were still using threats towards black people when they tried entering their schools, they stated that all schools receiving government money to operate would have to comply with integration. This meant that all public schools had to comply, therefore angry whites took their children out of public schools and placed them into private schools in rapid succession. This only further segregated schools and led to white flight. In Mississippi, the effects of this later addition to the Brown v. Board case echoes throughout the state, “in many communities across the state, especially in towns where black children are in the majority, white children almost exclusively attend small private schools founded around the time of court-mandated desegregation in the late 1960s,” (Richard, 2013). Understanding the failings of this court case implicate how specific we must be with new policy and how history continues to bleed into present day.
References:
Klein, R. (2014, July 30). Another Reason Why Segregated Education Is Bad For Young Students. Retrieved April 28, 2018, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/30/unc-school-segregation-study_n_5632118.html
Richard, A. (2013, April 26). Racial segregation continues to impact quality of education in Mississippi-and nationwide. Retrieved April 28, 2018, from http://hechingerreport.org/racial-segregation-continues-to-impact-quality-of-education-in-mississippi-and-nationwide/