Standardized Testing Increase School Segregation
Let’s say your community has two schools.
One serves mostly white students and the other serves mostly black students.
How do you eliminate such open segregation?
After all, in 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down school segregation in Brown vs. Board of Education as essentially separate and unequal.
It’s been nearly 70 years. We must have a recourse to such things these days. Mustn’t we?
Well, the highest court in the land laid down a series of decisions, starting with Milliken vs. Bradley in 1974, that effectively made school integration voluntary especially within district lines. So much so, in fact, that according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, from 2000 to 2014, school segregation more than doubled nationwide.
But let’s say you did find some right-minded individuals who cared enough to make the effort to fix the problem.
What could they do?
The most obvious solution would be to build a single new school to serve both populations.
So if you could find the will and the money, you could give it a try.
Unfortunately, that alone wouldn’t solve the problem.
Why?
Standardized tests.
Even when students from different racial or ethnic groups aren’t physically separated by district CONTINUE READING: Standardized Testing Increase School Segregation - LA Progressive
