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Separate And Unequal | Elijah Pontes
Elijah Pontes was born and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He majored in Sociology and minored in Business Administration as well as Urban Studies. He was an intern at the Arnold M. Dubin UMass Dartmouth Labor Education Center. He hopes to one day find a career that can help him provide opportunities for inner city youth.
**Second Place Award for Research**
Abstract: This paper addresses the high segregation levels in U.S. schools. It utilizes U.S. history in an investigation of how these highly segregated schools in the came to be. It also examines the deep impact that a segregated education can have on both black and white students.
Segregation has continuously and effectively reproduced inequalities in our society and is one of the greatest reinforcers of the white racial frame. The white racial frame is a way of viewing the world that whites use to rationalize the vast inequalities in our society and ignore the oppression that minorities in America face. It is taught to children at a very young age and can be seen in every aspect of American culture. The white racial frame is impossible to escape and is in fact so influential that it is adopted by many people of color as well. It is responsible for the perpetuation of many social injustices that put African Americans at a disadvantage, the most significant of which being the revival of segregated education. The impact of segregation on education is by far the most serious consequence because it is the most important tool for social mobility in our society. Social mobility is the ability of individuals to change classes and ascend the socioeconomic ladder. Throughout my paper I will prove that educational segregation is still alive and well in America, investigate how educational segregation has come about in our society, research the impact of segregation on quality of education, and show that segregated education undermines social mobility in black communities.
It took almost two centuries for the U.S. to take an active anti-racist stance and make strides toward desegregation. America has made many efforts to desegregate the nation and now it seems as though many of those efforts have gone to waste as school segregation levels have been rising steadily since 1988. By 1998 school integration levels had reached forty three percent (the percentage of black children attending majority white schools).1 However, a measurement of the same statistic five years ago reveals that this percentage has dropped to twenty three percent, which is lower than it was 48 years ago in 1968.2 This statistic is especially shocking when one takes into account that white public school enrollment rates have dropped twenty eight percent between 1968 and 2011.3 However, during this same time span black public school enrollment rates have increased by nineteen percent and Latino rates have jumped four hundred and ninety-five percent. The average white student in America today attends a school that is seventy-five percent white, on average will be in a class of thirty students, and will have twenty-one white classmates, two black classmates and four Latino.4 The numbers seem to suggest that desegregation is much more achievable now than it was after Brown v. Board of Education, so how is it possible that segregation levels have actually risen since 1968? Who is responsible for America’s inaction in the face of resegregation?
After Brown v. Board of Education, school districts were forced into desegregation efforts which had to be monitored by the courts. In 1991 in the case of Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell, the court ruled that a school district could be released from the desegregation order if it showed that it could follow the order. However, during the early 2000s, supervision from the courts slowly began to dwindle. From 1990 to 2009 forty-five percent of all school districts had been released from court supervision and during the early 2000s approximately fifteen schools a year were released from court oversight.5 After a district is released from court supervision they can stop all school desegregation efforts in the district without consequence. This made it very easy for many schools to resegregate after being released from oversight. Ian Millhiser argues that in truth peak desegregation efforts only lasted 10 years because they did not truly begin until a decade after Brown. Furthermore, he adds, it was only twenty years after Brown that the courts began putting restrictions on desegregation.6 A quick look at the history of enrollment rates for black students in white schools in the south shows that as soon as the courts began putting limits on desegregation in the late 1980s, integration levels began falling. The results of America’s desegregation efforts were being reversed only twenty years after they began. So it should be no shock to the public that our schools are more segregated now than they were in the late eighties.
Lastly, schools that are left without court supervision tend to become more segregated as time goes on, especially when compared with schools that are under court supervised desegregation orders.7 The U.S. has allowed integration levels to fall and black students are paying the price. It has been about half a century since the Supreme Court determined “separate but equal” to be invalid and that separate schooling is inherently unequal. However, the effects of segregation are still shaping the lives of black students. Education is the most important part of a child’s life and it is greatly influenced by segregation.
Blacks are deeply affected by the system of resource allocation. One study showed that a student’s chance of graduating when attending an integrated school increased by 2% every year as well as an extra $5,900 in expected annual family income and a lower chance of experiencing poverty.8 Clearly the attendance of black students at under-resourced schools is greatly impeding their success. Segregation, when combined with underfunded educational facilities, leads to crippling impoverishment and only serves to hinder the education received by African Americans in urban communities.
While many may claim that the end of school segregation came with the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, in reality school segregation simply took a new form. The legal barriers that separated white students and minority students pre- Brown v. Board of Education have now simply been disguised as class differences. The “new segregation” keeps poor students out of high-achieving schools; it is no coincidence that most of these poor students are black while the majority of students attending the best schools are white. Linda Darling-Hammond reveals how these dividing lines in education were only made deeper by government action in her article “Race Inequality and Educational Accountability- The Irony of ‘No Child Left Behind.’” Darling-Hammond investigates the impacts of No Child Left Behind and, astoundingly, her findings show that the act did much more harm than good. The main fault in No Child Left Behind is the intense focus on test scores. Test scores were the deciding factor in measuring the success of a school. This single aspect of the act had destructive impacts on poorly-funded schools. Schools that do not meet expectations for increasing test scores are penalized.
These schools are labeled as “failing” and forced to pay for the transfer of students who choose to do so.9 However, many schools that fail to meet these expectations struggle to do so because of their poor funding and limited resources. Furthermore, while the labeling of a school as “failing” is meant to pressure the facility to improve their standard, it ends up having the opposite effect as it is very difficult for a school with this label to attract high quality, or even qualified teachers.10 Basing the success of a school on test scores does not encourage an improvement in education, but instead forces schools to shrink their curricula and encourages them to exclude struggling students. In addition, the students that are not excluded emerge from high school with standardized test skills instead of reading, writing, and critical thinking skills that can be applied to real life.11
While the schools are being punished, it is the students who are really suffering. The emphasis that is placed on test scores in this country motivates schools to push out students that do not meet the school’s standards; this results in higher dropout rates for low income students in the inner city. A high school dropout does not have many options in our society. There are very few ways for someone with an eighth-grade education to survive in our society, especially in urban areas. Therefore, students that have been labeled a “lost cause” and have been abandoned by the very institutions meant to save them often end up imprisoned. Little do they know that they had been set on a path toward incarceration long before their sentencing. Kenneth J. Saltman explains the difference between low- and high-income schools. He examines how “Mountainview” (wellfunded, suburban, predominantly white schools) and “Groundview” (poorly-funded, inner-city, predominantly black schools) differ in terms of the educational environment provided for students. He argues that the two types of schools are separated by a “culture of privilege” that is simply not present in Groundview schools. Instead, Groundview schools focus on discipline and therefore produce an educational environment structured around regulation and control.12 The disciplinary tone in Groundview schools is highlighted by the presence of metal detectors and security guards. Students are not allowed in the hall during class without a pass. There are guards in every hallway and those caught without a pass are punished with detention immediately. The prison-like environment prepares students for incarceration. Additionally, it is no coincidence that in 2007 black students were more than three times as likely to be suspended from school as white students.13 After graduation, black male students are three times as likely to face future imprisonment.14 Even those students that manage to avoid imprisonment will still face many roadblocks in their life due to the wide gap in education based on class.
When one contemplates how white students are influenced by a segregated education the consequences are also damaging. A student that is raised in a completely whitewashed environment absent of minorities is a recipe for ignorance to spread. A student raised in such an environment has no experience with minorities and therefore cannot produce an accurate perception of minorities. Instead he is forced to rely on his teachers and parents for information about said groups, both of which were most likely raised in an environment similar to his own.
Once the white racial frame is taught to the next generation, the perpetuation of a cyclical pattern of racism is ensured. Lastly, white students attending the most affluent schools in the country means that they will be receiving the best jobs, putting them in a better position than minority students. So when a black student finally finishes his schooling, each time he tries to climb the socioeconomic ladder of our society he will first have to face the judgment of a man who has been raised entrenched in the white racial frame.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Amurao, Carla. “Fact Sheet: How Bad Is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?” Beat the Streets, Inc. Accessed May 02, 2016. https://www.beatthestreetsca.org/single-post/2016/07/15/Fact-Sheet-How-Bad-Is-the-SchooltoPrison-Pipeline.
Breslow, Jason M. “The Return of School Segregation in Eight Charts.” Frontline. July 15, 2014. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-return-of-school-segregation-in-eight-charts/.
Darling-Hammond, Linda. “Race, inequality and educational accountability: the irony of ‘No Child Left Behind.’” Race Ethnicity and Education Vol. 10, Issue 3 (2007), 245-260. Accessed May 3, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613320701503207.
Millhiser, Ian. “American Schools Are More Segregated Now Than They Were In 1968, And The Supreme Court Doesn’t Care.” Think Progress, August 13, 2015. https://thinkprogress.org/american-schools-are-more-segregated-now-than-they-were-in-1968-and-the-supreme-court-doesnt-care-cc7abbf6651c/
Saltman, Kenneth J. “Education as Enforcement: Militarization and Corporatization of Schools.” Race, Poverty & the Environment 14, no. 2 (2007): 28-30. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41554551.
1 Ian Millhiser, “American Schools Are More Segregated Now Than They Were In 1968, And The Supreme Court Doesn’t Care,” Think Progress, August 21, 2015, https://thinkprogress.org/american-schools-are-more-segregated-now-than-they-were-in-1968-and-the-supreme-court-doesnt-care-cc7abbf6651c/.
2 Millhiser, “American Schools.”
3 Jason Breslow, “The Return of School Segregation in Eight Charts,” Frontline, July 15, 2014. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-return-of-school-segregation-in-eight-charts/.
4 Breslow, “Return.”
5 Ibid
6 Millhiser, “American Schools.”
7 Breslow, “Return.”
8 Ibid
9 Linda Darling-Hammond, “Race, inequality and educational accountability: the irony of ‘No Child Left Behind.’” Race Ethnicity and Education Vol. 10, Issue 3 (2007), 245-260.
10 Ibid
11 Ibid
12 Kenneth J. Saltman, “Education as Enforcement: Militarization and Corporatization of Schools,” Race, Poverty & the Environment, 14, no. 2 (2007): 28-30. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41554551.
13 Carla Amurao, “Fact Sheet: How Bad Is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?” Beat the Streets, Inc. https://www.beatthestreetsca.org/single-post/2016/07/15/Fact-Sheet-How-Bad-Is-the-SchooltoPrison-Pipeline.
14 Ibid