The concept of diversity in America is likely to become more of a reality with the prospect of a Black man or female becoming the next president of the United States. However, outside the Oval Office, minority students are still not well represented within the country’s best educational systems.
Segregation persistently abounds in the public schools. Racial segregation in schools most often reflects the surrounding community and therefore appears corollary at first glance. Nationally, students in largely minority communities often suffer the consequences of attending failing inner-city schools.
While the struggle to overcome the barriers of racial inequality in public education was validated in Brown v. Board of Education, the problem of deficient schools stubbornly prevailed in minority communities. Between the mid-1960s to the late 1970s, federal courts and government agencies demanded raceconscious policies in every aspect of school operations. During the early years of integration, racial balance quotas were adopted and one of the most controversial aspects of school desegregation involved assigning students to schools. Yet, school boards and state legislatures countered by using various tactics to avoid the desegregation decrees through initiatives like the massive resistance and the Southern manifesto, which resulted in a substantial withdrawal of children from public schools into private, segregated academies, causing the withdrawal of considerable financial support.
As a result, many experts promoted the merits of voluntary compliance for desegregation as opposed to mandatory because of its market-driven approach. Author Betsy Levin argues that this resistance to integration in education left public schools servicing mainly minority populations. Writer Jonathan Kozol describes it as “apartheid education.” Currently, the number of minority children attending integrated schools has dropped to its lowest level since 1968. In fact, Blacks and Hispanics compose 56 percent of students in urban areas. Minority children still underachieve by the millions through no fault of their own, but by virtue of sheer locality.
