Racism and Segregation in USA Schools

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Racism and Segregation in USA Schools
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How does the issue of intolerance, injustice,
racism and inequity affect schools and society?
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Activity

• Isms
• Racial line- handout

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Who gets a piece of the American apple pie?
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History of segregation

• Fourteenth Amendment prohibited individual states
  from denying any citizen his or her fundamental
  rights, and, further, it extended the right of
  due process in legal matters.
• 1892, Plessy v. Ferguson challenged the 14th
  amendment
• Early in the 20th century movement to bring about
  equality to the segregated Black schools in the
  south
• 17 states mandated segregation by law
• 1954- Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court
  decision separate is not equal Southern
  apartheid was unconstitutional and illegitimate
• 1954-1964 fight against almost uniformed
  opposition and resistance to the mandate
• 1960s- Martin Luther King led hundreds of
  protests in both the north and the south against
  segregated conditions
• Congress spent a decade to decide whether or not
  to cut off funds for schools that defied the
  Supreme Courts decision
• 1964- President Kennedy asked Congress to
  prohibit discrimination in all programs receiving
  federal aide- 98 of southern Blacks were still
  in totally segregated schools

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14th amendment

• All person born or naturalized in the United
  States, and subject to the jurisdiction
  thereof, are citizens of the United States and of
  the State wherein they reside. No State shall
  make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
  privileges or immunities of citizens of the
  United States nor shall any State deprive any
  person of life, liberty, or property, without due
  process of law nor deny to any person within its
  jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.

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History.

• Late 60s and early 1970s strong movement
  towards desegregation-during this period the
  south moved from almost total racial separation
  to become the nations most integrated region
• In part desegregation was achieved through busing
  programs
• 1968- Election of Richard Nixon was a turning
  point leading to the change in position of
  desegregation and encouraged the Supreme Court to
  slow down or reverse its desegregation policies
• 1974 law passed against desegregation between
  city-suburban lines and equalizing funding across
  school districts
• Carter legacy tried to reinstate more
  desegregation laws working with desegregating
  housing with school integration policy but was
  hampered by Congress

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Desegregation through busing

• Schools in many parts of the country continued to
  be segregated by race.
• Neighborhoods retained racial imbalances
• Boston, schools were constructed and school
  district lines drawn intentionally to segregate
  racially the schools. In the early 1970s, a
  series of court decisions found that the racially
  imbalanced schools trampled the rights of
  minority students
• Racial integration achieved by transporting
  children by school bus to a school in a different
  area of the district.
• The "forced" adjective was a derisive term
• Court-ordered busing to achieve school
  desegregation was used mainly in large,
  ethnically segregated school systems, including
  Boston, Massachusetts Cleveland, Ohio Kansas
  City, Missouri Pasadena, California Richmond,
  Virginia San Francisco, California and
  Wilmington, Delaware.
• Charlotte, North Carolina (from 1969) and
  Savannah, Georgia (from 1970) students were often
  transported many miles from their homes, passing
  one or more schools before arriving at their
  assigned campus. The Charlotte and Savannah plans
  are noteworthy in that most students were
  affected, and that a majority of blacks as well
  as whites would not attend their neighborhood
  school for two decades. (The two plans ended in
  the 1990s.)
• Proponents of such plans argued that with the
  schools integrated, minority students would have
  equal access to equipment, facilities and
  resources that the cities' white students had,
  thus giving all students in the city equal
  educational opportunities. They also pointed out
  that the United States Supreme Court had found
  that separate but equal schools are inherently
  unequal.

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Milliken v. Bradley

• In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court held that "with
  no showing of significant violation by the 53
  outlying school districts and no evidence of any
  interdistrict violation or effect," the district
  court's remedy was "wholly impermissible" and not
  justified by Brown v. Board of Education. The
  Court noted that desegregation, "in the sense of
  dismantling a dual school system," did not
  require "any particular racial balance in each
  'school, grade or classroom.'" The Court also
  emphasized the importance of local control over
  the operation of schools.

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History

• Reagan brought a rapid repeal of the federal
  desegregation assistance program and a shift in
  the Justice Departments position, opposing
  desegregation policy- theories that it had not
  worked and it should be canceled after only a few
  years
• 1980s Supreme court started to advocate this
  position through policy
• Nixon, Reagan and Bush policies succeed in
  creating a Supreme Court that had a fundamentally
  different opinion about civil rights.
• Rehnquist Court- positive policies taking race
  into account for the purpose of creating
  integration were suspect lower courts began to
  forbid voluntary desegregation programs
• 1981- significant federal aid aimed at helping
  interracial schools succeed ended

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Benefits of desegregation

• End deeply rooted patterns of illegal separation
  of students
• Evidence that it changes test scores
• Students from desegregated schools benefit in
  college-going, employment and living in
  integrated settings as adults
• Increase human relations
• Minorities from integrated schools experience far
  greater graduation rates, college-going
• Students become bicultural
• http//www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research
  /diversity/cambridge_diversity.php

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Brown vs. Board of Education..

• 50 years after the US Supreme Court ruled that
  segregated schools are inherently unequal,
  schools across the country are still separated by
  race and class. And the problem is getting worse
  (Orfield, Harvard Civil Rights Project).

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Today.

• Number of Black and Latino students in the
  nations public schools is up 5.8 million
• Number of white students has declined by 5.6
  million
• Low birth rates
• Massive immigration
• Latino students- 2 million in 1968 has grown to
  6.9 million (245 growth in thirty years)
• Black students- 1968 3x more than Latino but in
  1998 there were seven Latinos for every Black
  student

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Today

• By 2050 whites will be at 49 and if whites
  continue to sustain the educational authority and
  power then this has huge implications for the
  nations social structure. Population groups are
  shifting towards the lower achieving group the
  test scores of Black 17 year olds is at the place
  of White 13 year olds.

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• A study at the Harvard University Civil Rights
  Project finds that public schools in the USA are
  re-segregating, leaving a vast gap in resources
  and opportunities between white and non-white
  communities.

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• The period of growing desegregation coincided
  with the most dramatic narrowing of the test
  score gap ever recorded for Blacks and whites.
• In the 1990s racial gaps in achievement have
  been growing and the high school graduation of
  Black students is decreasing.

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• 10 of white children live in poverty while 35
  of Black and Latino children live in poverty

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• 1/6th of the nations Black students are educated
  in schools and districts that are almost
  completely non-white

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• The country is moving toward a greater inequality
  and more reinforcement of economic and social
  privilege

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Educational Finance

• 1973- US Supreme Court overruled the judgment of
  the district court in Texas that had found the
  inequalities of education finance in that state
  to be unconstitutional
• The Equal Protection Law does not require
  absolute equality

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Educational Finance

• However, segregated minority schools are
  overwhelmingly likely to have to contend with the
  educational impacts of concentrated poverty- 50
  or more of the student population eligible for
  free or reduced lunch
• White segregated white schools are almost always
  middle class
• Legacy of unequal education, income, and the
  continuing patterns of housing discrimination.

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States rebel

• Monterey, California
• Chemistry lab with no chemicals
• Literature classes with no books
• Computer classes where we sit there and talk
  about what we would be doing if we had computers
• Classes where students were required to stand or
  sit on window sills because there were not enough
  chairs
• Classes without regular teachers where the subs
  let the students watch movies and everybody
  failed the final exam

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Educational Finance

• Cost of building new and safe schools for
  children in urban settings has been estimated by
  the General Accounting Office at 100B and 200B
  if adequate wiring for the internet would be
  installed.

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Educational Finance

• In 31 states, districts with the highest
  percentage of minority children also receive less
  funding per pupil than do districts with the
  fewest minority children

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• 25 thousand students served by Head Start up to
  now will not receive it now

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Special Education

• The growth of special education, with a
  disproportionate number of Blacks parallels the
  growth of desegregation (Asa Hilliard, Georgia
  State University).

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Special Education

• Blacks are more than three times as likely as
  whites to be given short-term suspensions
• They are 67 more likely than whites with
  emotional or behavioral problems to be removed
  from school on the grounds of being dangerous.

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Special Education

• In the 1970s African Americans were 16 of total
  enrollment but 38 of students identified as
  mentally retarded.
• More than 20 years laterAfrican American
  children constitute 17 percent of total
  enrollment and 33 of students considered
  cognitively disabled (mentally retarded)
• Nationwide, Blacks are more than three times more
  likely to be identified ad mentally retarded than
  whites and more than twice as likely to be
  labeled as emotionally disturbed..

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Special EducationLifetime consequences

• More than half of the African American students
  as compared to 39 of the White young adults (who
  have been in special education) are still not
  employed three to five years out of school.
• Arrest rate for African Americans with
  disabilities is 40 as compared to 29 of Whites

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School choice

• After the Civil War, Blacks fought for access of
  the great equalizer, public education
• Under slavery, in a practice that continued with
  indentured children in post slavery years, it was
  common for Black children to be loaned out as
  apprentices in exchange for cash to support
  private tuition of their owners children. In
  other words, for at least three centuries, white
  children of gentry were educated as a direct
  result of the wages provided by Black children
  who were deprived education

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School Choice

• We forget at our own peril that the voucher
  movement was, and remains, a movement that
  abandons public education rather than fights for
  the rights of all.
• The conservatives pushing vouchers are not
  committed to better public schools for all. They
  are seeking to funnel money to private schools.
• Fright and Flight- with the advent of school
  integration, it is the public schools that are
  the threat with sex education and
  multiculturalism

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School Choice

• Choice left to itself will increase
  stratification (Gary Orfield)

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College opportunities

• As high paying factory jobs of the industrial
  economy disappear, a college education is
  critical to ensure a life without poverty
  affirmative action has been under attack and race
  conscious admissions have been take to court

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College opportunities

• New York City and Chicago populate 10 of the
  countrys African American male students who fail
  to graduate with their entering classmates
• In districts in which white students make up the
  majority, nearly 80 of the students graduate in
  four years

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College opportunities

• Enrollment of minority students at a number of
  our most prestigious public universities has
  dropped alarmingly
• 350 African American freshmen enrolled at the
  University of Michigan out of an entering class
  of almost 6,000 students-the lowest number of
  African Americans in 15 years and a decline from
  nearly 500 three years earlier

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Teaching..

• Quality teaching is the key to eliminating racial
  and economic achievement gaps
• Teachers lack the training, resources, and
  alternatives for dealing with children

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How can teachers address racism and white
privilege-in their classrooms, personal lives,
and educational institutions?

• Washington State- Student play
• Reading Poverty A critical reading of work and
  hunger in the United States
• Colonialism and Post-Colonialism in the
  Democratic Republic of the Congo using Barbara
  Kingslovers novel, The Poisonwood Bible
• Looking for love and language in Zora Neal
  Hustons Their Eyes Were Watching God.

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• Write the truth fifth graders research how many
  U.S. Presidents owned slaves and demand that
  their history textbooks address the issue
• What does it mean to be qualified and how do we
  measure success. (capitalistic) What if we were
  to rethink our assumptions in the context of
  standardized tests and admissions requirements?
  What would we find?
• White privilege is the other side of racism. We
  must acknowledge it. It is easier to deplore
  racism than to admit to the privileges that many
  of us have because of it. Once we understand how
  white privilege works we can take steps on a
  personal and professional level to dismantle it.
  That which keeps people of color off balance in a
  racist society is that which gives whites power.
  We must acknowledge power, leave our comfort zone
  and work to dismantle that power.

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• Any serious effort to reopen the debate about
  segregation is going to be enormously more
  difficult than the dismantling of apartheid in
  the South. Apartheid was so gross and open in
  its manifestations that it was insustainable
  within the age that following WWII. (Roger
  Wilkins- George Mason University)

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• Contemporary political leaders.
• Small minded triumphalism
• Grew up in isolated worlds of white male
  privilege
• Have inadequate education for the
  responsibilities that they hold

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• The demarcation between separate worlds of
  education are assuming sharper lines. There is a
  new emboldenment among the relatively privileged
  to isolate their children as completely as they
  can from more than token numbers of the children
  of minorities (Kozol, 2005)

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Gary Orfield

• The struggle was never just for desegregated
  schools nor was it motivated by a desire on the
  part of the Black students to simply sit next to
  white students. It was an integral part of a
  much broader movement for racial and economic
  justice.

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Journal

• Dare the School Build a New Social Order? George
  Counts (1932)
• Is it a schools responsibility to construct
  society or to reconstruct society? Why or why
  not?

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References

• Gary Orfields work
• Jonathan Kozols work
• Rethinking Schools