Risks Seen in Resegregation of Schools
Fourth-graders Braxton Brown (left) and Zaria Peace receive iPads at Rutherford Elementary in Mesquite. Many suburban school districts have seen minority growth outpace white enrollment. Photo by Nathan Hunsinger/Dallas Morning News.
Editor’s note: This story is part of a special report on resegregation and disparity in Texas public schools. The rest of the report includes stories on charter schools, magnet schools, Hispanic students, state funding, and crime in schools.
By Caitlin Perrone and Bryce Bencivengo
For InvestigaTexas and The Dallas Morning News
For InvestigaTexas and The Dallas Morning News
Thousands of Texas public schools are nearly as segregated as they were almost 60 years ago when a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision sought to end racial divisions in education.
An extraordinary spike in the number of Hispanic students and white flight are now the driving forces that have reshaped the racial makeup of schools.
The split continues to widen as school districts and the Legislature battle over funding to keep up with a diverse and growing population.
And if demographic trends continue, the districts may be filled mostly with economically disadvantaged Hispanic and black students.
An analysis by InvestigaTexas, a project coordinated by the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism and The Dallas Morning News, found that almost half of the public school students attend a campus that’s at least 80 percent minority or 80 percent white. That’s 2.4 million students, more than the populations of Dallas and Fort Worth combined.
That trend — along with disparities in resources among school districts — puts minority students at greater risk of being mired in poverty, or dropping out and entering what has been dubbed a “school-to-
Getting an education about race and public schools
Students with the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism have produced a thought-provoking look at demographic trends in public schools that’s running in The Dallas Morning News. Among the findings:
* Thousands of Texas schools are nearly as segregated as they were almost 60 years ago when a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision sought to end racial divisions in education.
*An extraordinary spike in the number of Hispanic students and white flight are now the driving forces that have reshaped the racial makeup of schools.
*Many minority students are seeking out alternatives to a public school education.