Any educational reform that ignores segregation is doomed to failure
A new report finds that such reforms only placate white people, don't bring equity
I n education, America does everything but equity.” With these words, Failing Brown v. Board, a new report from the civil rights group Journey for Justice Alliance, makes plain how the machine of educational reform, with all its innovations and disruptive technologies, is missing an essential cog: the resources to deliver a quality neighborhood school.
Most states cut education spending in the 2008 recession. Yet, despite the economy having recovered, there is less funding today for education than even those lean years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Researchers from this non-profit found that in 2015, “29 states were still providing less total school funding per student than they were in 2008.”
No wonder the quality of our schools is suffering, and parents are grasping at straws. But the seductive promise of educational programs that don’t grapple with the roots of inequality will eventually ring hollow.
Yesterday, the director of Journey for Justice Alliance, Jitu Brown — alongside other civil rights groups including the NAACP, the Advancement Project, American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association — held a press conference on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. The occasion was the release of the report, to do what many reformers openly refuse to — confront a system of segregated schools.
Segregated housing and schools, gerrymandered districts and voter suppression picked up were Jim Crow left off. Housing ghettos are born of racist housing policies that rob the black community of opportunities to amass wealth. According to Prosperity Now, a national nonprofit to expand economic opportunity for low-income families, and the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, white households have seven times the amount of wealth as African Americans, and six times as much as Latinos.
Wealthier neighborhoods to hoard wealth and maintain a racially separate school system through a financial structure based on property taxes. Local school districts rely heavily on the revenue that comes from local property taxes, creating funding disparities between rich and poor districts. These primary sources of inequality continue to limit opportunities, suppressing the social mobility of subsequent generations. Yet many education reformers avoid, accept — or even embrace! — segregation, knowing that federal policy got Continue reading; Any education reform that ignores segregation is doomed to failure:
