I think it's a valid question to ask -- is America going back to the bad old days of segregation? Since the election of President Obama, the nation's first African-American president, we have seen a resurgence in racist behavior. But even more important, and more insidious, are the efforts of many in this country to find ways to get around desegregation -- efforts like gerrymandering of school districts, and sending students to private and charter schools.Author, columnist, adjunct professor at Georgetown University, and longtime Democratic activist Donna Brazile (pictured) calls it the re-segregation of America, and she has written an excellent article on the subject for CNN. I think she's right, and while her entire article is well worth reading (and I urge you to do so), I bring you a part of it below. It's time for Americans to once again look at the question of race in this country. We've come too far to backslide now. We need to move forward and make sure equal opportunity exists for all Americans regardless of race, color or ethnicity. Brazile writes:
On Saturday, we will commemorate the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed school segregation. Across the country, people are reflecting on the current state of educational opportunities for children of color. . .
In cities across the country, students of color increasingly attend schools that do not reflect the diversity of our national community. The biggest metro areas in the Northeast and Midwest have been epicenters of re-segregation. In the 1990s and 2000s, school districts across the South, after being released from Brown-era, court-enforced integration, began gerrymandering school attendance zones, effectively separating black and white students.
Today, black students in the South attend majority-black schools at levels not observed for 40 years. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for example, nearly one in three black students attends a school that looks like Brown never even happened.
The result is that the achievement gap, which steadily decreased during integration, is widening as re-segregation occurs.
Integrated schools help students achieve academic success in the present and personal success in the future. Students of color who attended integrated schools in the decades immediately following Brown were more likely to graduate high school, go to college, earn higher wages, live healthier lifestyles and not have a criminal record than their peers in segregated schools. (Diverse schools can also decrease prejudice and teach all students how to navigate an increasingly diverse nation.). . .
Sixty years later, "separate and unequal" is still alive.To fix the problem, we must recognize the problem. First,privatizing our school systems results in increased segregation, not improved opportunities. Whether in New Orleans or Philadelphia or Detroit or New York, legislative schemes perpetuate separate and unequal by privatizing large swaths of public school districts -- and in some cases, entire districts.
Second, education doesn't take place in a vacuum. Students and their families need access to health care, decent wages and affordable housing in integrated neighborhoods. Thus, Brown's legacy includes economic improvements for children and families.
Third, neither high-quality public schools nor economic improvements can occur when voters are disenfranchised. Only the right to vote protects access to education and movement toward economic improvement. Yet 34 states -- most under Republican control -- have passed laws to make it harder for minorities, the elderly, and young people to vote, including so-called voter ID laws and regulations that limit early voting.
The economic and racial inequities that existed 60 years ago persist in our communities today. They must be addressed. In the spirit of Brown, students, parents and educators are demanding solutions that go beyond the dysfunctional "education reforms" and address a wide range of community concerns, from stopping school privatization to providing universal early childhood education to raising the minimum wage.
School integration did not come to be the day after the Brown ruling was issued. Progress took years, and it took passion, strength and courage from a large group of committed individuals.
Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, it's time for us to take a hard look at the separate and unequal conditions that still exist in our schools and our communities, and rededicate ourselves to fulfilling the promise of equal opportunity for all.
