Deepening Segregation and Challenges in Education

Posted by on October 08, 2012

More separate, less equal

In its latest analysis of segregation trends in public schools, the Civil Rights Project has released three new studies showing persistent increases in segregation by race and poverty, dramatically so in the South and West. Nationally, the average black or Latino student now attends school with a substantial majority of children in poverty, double the level of schools that are predominately white and Asian. Latino students attend more intensely segregated and impoverished schools than they have for generations. In spite of declining residential segregation for black families, school segregation remains very high and is increasing most severely in the South. The authors stress that simply sitting next to a white student does not guarantee better educational outcomes for students of color. Instead, resources that include expert teachers and advanced courses — which are consistently linked to predominately white and/or wealthy schools — help foster real educational advantages over minority-segregated settings. The Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration before it, has taken no significant action to increase school integration or to help stabilize diverse schools undergoing racial change due to changes in the housing market. Small, positive steps in civil rights enforcement by the current administration have been undermined by its strong drive to expand charter schools, the most segregated sector of schools for African American students.

See the reports: http://tinyurl.com/bnq7vel