Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Separate. Unequal. Still.

Sarah Garland with an op ed in the NY Daily News about the resegregation of our schools, which I view as a major calamity (along with rolling back voting rights) (incidentally, neither of these things just happened – it took a concerted effort by racists in the Republican party):

In the fight over how to close the racial achievement gap in education, you rarely hear about the only policy that's ever worked on a national scale: desegregation.

Reformers push school choice and tougher teacher evaluations. Unions demand higher pay and more focus on out-of-school problems like poverty. But desegregation is perhaps the biggest success story in the history of American education.

During the 1980s, when desegregation was in full effect — with forced busing in some cities and less dramatic strategies elsewhere — the black-white achievement gap on the National Assessment for Educational Progress shrunk faster than it ever has before or since.

When black students went to schools with white ones, they were able to access good teachers, principals and guidance counselors, updated textbooks and more advanced classes. Desegregation broke up concentrated poverty in segregated schools that had been forced to educate the toughest kids with the fewest resources.

With these new opportunities — including access to the social and career networks white kids took for granted — research found that black students not only did better on tests, they earned higher degrees and got better jobs. White students, meanwhile, didn't suffer any negative consequences from attending integrated schools — and studies found they became more open-minded and less prejudiced.

For an outstanding, in-depth look at this issue (which I sent around when it was published in April 2014), see this ProPublica story,Segregation Now: In Tuscaloosa today, nearly one in three black students attends a school that looks as if Brown v. Board of Education never happened

Separate. Unequal. Still.

Sarah Garland NEW YORK DAILY NEWS 08/16/2015 5:00 AM ET
 
[Well, if calling gun fanatics "gun fanatics" and people who want to roll back segregation and suppress minority voting "racists" don't earn me some hate emails, nothing will! To quote FDR: "They are unanimous in their hate for me; and I welcome their hatred."]
 

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