On the anniversary of Brown v. Board, new evidence that U.S. schools are resegregating
The Washington Post // Emma Brown
The GAO conducted its study during the past two years at the request of Democratic lawmakers including Rep. Bobby Scott (Va.), the ranking Democrat on the House education committee, and Rep. John Conyers (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. Scott on Tuesday announced legislation that would make it easier for parents to sue school districts for civil rights violations, saying the GAO report provided evidence of an “overwhelming failure to fulfill the promise of Brown.” “Segregation in public K12 schools isn’t getting better; it’s getting worse, and getting worse quickly, with more than 20 million students of color now attending racially and socioeconomically isolated public schools,” he said in a statement Tuesday, calling on GOP leaders in the House to hold hearings on tackling segregation. The resegregation of schools during the past two decades has for the most part happened quietly, in the shadows of loud battles over standardized testing, teacher evaluations, charter schools and Common Core academic standards.
Report finds segregation in education on the rise
Associated Press//Jennifer C. Kerr
Six decades after the Supreme Court outlawed separating students by race, stubborn disparities persist in how the country educates its poor and minority children. A report Tuesday by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found deepening segregation of black and Hispanic students at high-poverty K-12 public schools. These schools offered fewer math, science and college prep classes, while having higher rates of students who are held back in ninth grade, suspended or expelled. “Segregation in public K-12 schools isn’t getting better. It’s getting worse, and getting worse quickly,” Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia said. The analysis, he said, confirmed that America’s schools are largely segregated by race and class, leaving more than 20 million students “attending racially and socioeconomically isolated public schools.”
62 years after Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, U.S. schools are becoming more segregated
The Los Angeles Times // Joy Resmovits
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, requested the report in 2014. He released the findings Tuesday, the 62nd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1954 landmark decision in the Brown vs. Board of Education case. Along with the release of the report, Scott and other House Democrats are introducing legislation they say will “empower parents and communities to address — through robust enforcement — racial inequities in public education,” according to a fact sheet from his office. The Equity and Inclusion Enforcement Act would restore parents’ rights to sue segregated school districts using claims of disparate impact under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The bill would create “Title VI monitors”,” who would investigate devoted to investigating discrimination complaints under the law, and an assistant secretary of education to oversee them.
Black And Latino Students Lose Out To White Peers. And It’s Getting Worse.
The Huffington Post // Rebecca Klein
Congressmen Scott and Conyers held a press conference on Tuesday, where the Virginia representative reprimanded the government for failing to make progress on this issue. “Lack of governmental action and oversight, fueled in part by hostile court decisions that made public school integration harder, not easier, have lead us to 2016: An overwhelming failure to fulfill the promise of Brown in realizing equality in educational opportunity for all students,” Scott said. Scott and Conyers introduced a new bill in response to the report’s findings, which would allow individual civil actions in education cases involving disparate impact. “This bill would level the playing field for parents and communities to address – through robust enforcement – racial inequities in public education,” Scott said. Nancy Zirkin, the executive vice president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, an umbrella organization comprising more than 200 national organizations, lamented the study’s results. “I am sorry to say that the new GAO study confirms what we all suspected — schools are more segregated now than in 2000,” Zirkin said. “These schools and districts are educating a larger share of low-income students and students of color, but compared to their more affluent peers, have minimal access to the educational resources needed to support student success … We must focus on fixing resource disparities that have plagued students of color and low-income students for generations.”
Public schools are ‘resegregating,’ Dems say
The Hill // Tim Devaney
Schools are “resegregating at an alarming rate” more than a half century since the Civil Rights Movement, Democrats warned Tuesday. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new study Tuesday that found racial isolation in public schools nearly doubled to 16 percent between 2000 and 2014. The findings reveal that many African American and Hispanic students are stuck in low-income schools, where they enjoy fewer education opportunities. “Our nation’s schools are, in fact, largely segregated by race and class,” Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) said. “What’s more troubling, is that segregation in public schools is not getting better; it’s actually getting worse.”
Share of High-Poverty, Racially Isolated Schools Rising, GAO Report Says
Education Week // Andrew Ujifusa
School integration and diversity, and the lack thereof in American public education, have become a more significant part of discussions about education policy and politics recently. President Barack Obama’s administration put a priority on economic integration in various parts of its recently proposed federal budget. And Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. has said that making schools more racially diverse and socioecomically integrated is a powerful way to improve educational outcomes, especially for disadvantaged students. These sorts of findings are not new. In 2014, for example, we covered a report from the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights that highlighted relatively thin academic offerings for many minority students, among other disparities between students of color and their peers. The GAO prepared its new report at the request of Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the ranking member of the House education committee, and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. and ranking member of the House judiciary committee. The data covers the academic years from 2000-01 to 2013-14. The report was released on the 62nd anniversary of the U.S.
Mississippi School District Considering Appeal to Desegregation Order
ABC News // Meghan Keneally
The Cleveland School District’s board “is examining the 96-page opinion of the Court and considering its options for appeal,” the statement read. The statement was released the same day as the Government Accountability Office issued a report suggesting that segregation is getting worse in the America rather than better, more than six decades after the landmark desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education. The GAO report asserts that the number of poorer schools that are attended mostly by black and Hispanic students has grown in recent years. Specifically the GAO found that during the 2000-2001 school year, 9 percent of public schools had 75 percent or more black or Hispanic students. In the 2013-2014 school year, that number went up to 16 percent of all public schools fitting the bill. The report was released to members of Congress on April 21 and released publicly today. “This report is a national call to action,” Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) told the Associated Press.
GAO study: Segregation worsening in U.S. schools
USA Today // Greg Toppo
America’s public schools – 62 years after the Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education decision – are increasingly segregated by race and class, according to new findings by Congress’ watchdog agency that echo what advocates for low-income and minority students have said for years. U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigators found that from the 2000-2001 to the 2013-2014 school year, both the percentage of K-12 public schools in high-poverty and the percentage comprised of mostly African-American or Hispanic students grew significantly, more than doubling, from 7,009 schools to 15,089 schools. The percentage of all schools with so-called racial or socio-economic isolation grew from 9% to 16%.
Public Schools Becoming More Racially Segregated: Report
NBC News //Aris Folley
Racial segregation has been deepening in public education, offering a sobering reminder of the nation’s history when it comes to racial and economic isolation in classrooms, according to a recent report published by the Government Accountability Office Tuesday. Published on the anniversary of the landmark ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, the GAO found evidence of growing racial divides persisting in public education. The number of Black and Latino students enrolled in impoverished K-12 public schools increased 11 percent between 2001 and 2014.
Conyers says segregation on rise, seeks federal action
Detroit Free Press // Todd Spangler
U.S. Rep. John Conyers is urging passage of a bill that would reinstate private lawsuits to address racial inequities in public education after a government report showed an alarming increase in the percentage of public schools with high numbers of poor black or Hispanic students. Conyers, D-Detroit, joined U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., on Tuesday to encourage a hearing for the legislation, which, if passed, would reverse a 2001 Supreme Court decision which held that no such private right to legal action exists under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Passage of the legislation faces extremely long odds in the current Congress, however. Scott is the ranking Democratic member of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce and Conyers is the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and a cosponsor of the bill. Two years ago, they asked the General Accountability Office — a nonpartisan agency — to report on racial disparities in the nation’s public schools 60 years after the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which ruled that laws formally segregating students by race were unconstitutional.
Segregation in American schools was outlawed 62 years ago, but it’s on the rise
Quartz//Jenny Anderson
In 2014, a trio of lawmakers asked the GAO to examine racial and socioeconomic isolation in K-12 public schools, and what impact that had on educational equity. Rep. Bobby Scott, one of the members of Congress who requested the report, responded in a statement: “The GAO report confirms that our nation’s schools are, in fact, largely segregated by race and class. What’s more troubling, is that segregation in public K12 schools isn’t getting better; it’s getting worse, and getting worse quickly, with more than 20 million students of color now attending racially and socioeconomically isolated public schools.” The government oversight group analyzed education data for school years 2000-01 to 2013-14 as well as relevant federal laws and regulations. It interviewed officials and experts, as well as school district officials in three states. It recommended that the US education department analyze the civil rights data it collects more closely and more often, and that the Justice Department keep a closer eye on federal school desegregation cases.
Report Finds School Segregation on the Rise
Courthouse News // Christine Stuart
“Our work shows that disparities in education persist and are particularly acute among schools with the highest concentrations of minority and poor students,” analysts concluded. “Further, black and Hispanic students are increasingly attending high-poverty schools where they face multiple disparities, including less access to academic offerings.” U.S. Reps. Robert Scott, D-Va., John Conyers, D-Mich., and former Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., requested the report back in 2014 on the 60th anniversary of the landmark school desegregation case. The report released Tuesday, on the ruling’s 62nd anniversary, analyzed U.S. Department of Education and Department of Justice data from 2000 through 2014. It found that the number of schools that had high percentages of poor and black and Hispanic students increased from 9 to 16 percent.
More Than 60 Years After Brown v. Board of Education, School Segregation Still Exists
U.S. News & World Report // Lauren Camera
Since the 2000-2001 school year, students who were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a proxy for measuring the number of poor students in a school, also increased by 143 percent. And while black and Hispanic students have poverty rates two to three times higher than the rates of white students, Hispanic students tended to be “triple segregated,” the report noted – by race, economics and language. “Research has shown a clear link between a school’s poverty level and student academic outcomes, with higher poverty associated with worse educational outcomes,” the GAO report states. “Black and Hispanic students are increasingly attending high-poverty schools where they face multiple disparities, including less access to academic offerings.” The 108-page report, released Tuesday, came in response to a request House Democrats made more than two years ago for the GAO to examine poverty and race in schools, as well as efforts to address related issues by the Department of Education and the Department of Justice, which are both responsible for enforcing federal civil rights laws prohibiting racial discrimination against students.
62 years after Brown v. BOE, court orders schools to desegregate
CNN //Joshua Berlinger
Living on the “other side of the tracks” isn’t just a cheap idiom in Cleveland, Mississippi. Court documents show that 62 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled school segregation unconstitutional, the schools in this west Mississippi town of 12,000 are still divided, black and white — and the abandoned Illinois Central Railroad tracks that run through town serve as the line of demarcation.
On Brown anniversary, GAO report finds segregation deepening
The Notebook// Dale Mezzacappa
Today is the 62nd anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared segregated schools to be unconstitutional. The decision voided Jim Crow laws in Southern states that deliberately segregated schools. It did not address – nor did it slow – segregation arising from housing patterns or federal policies, including lending practices that redlined neighborhoods of color and made it nearly impossible for Blacks to move to the suburbs. The Government Accountability Office on Tuesday released a study with the muted title, “Better Use of Information Could Help Agencies Identify Disparities and Address Racial Discrimination.” The bottom line: Today, schools are more segregated than ever by both race and income.
GAO Report Cites Evidence of Growing Isolation, Disparities in Education
Black Enterprise // Robin White Goode
The promise of Brown is yet to be fulfilled; in fact, we are moving backwards as a country. The Departments of Education and Justice asked the Government Accountability Office to study changes in student racial isolation or integration over time. Today, the GAO released its report, K-12 Education: Better Use of Information Could Help Agencies Identify Disparities and Address Racial Discrimination. I’m a little suspicious, though. Don’t we already have reams of information, documented instances of disparity in every corner of the country, disparities of teacher quality, curriculum, and school facilities? I’m not convinced that more information is what we need.
Mississippi School District Considering Appeal to Desegregation Order
WBAL News Radio 1090
The statement was released the same day as the Government Accountability Office issued a report suggesting that segregation is getting worse in the America rather than better, more than six decades after the landmark desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education. The GAO report asserts that the number of poorer schools that are attended mostly by black and Hispanic students has grown in recent years. Specifically the GAO found that during the 2000-2001 school year, 9 percent of public schools had 75 percent or more black or Hispanic students. In the 2013-2014 school year, that number went up to 16 percent of all public schools fitting the bill. The report was released to members of Congress on April 21 and released publicly Tuesday.
New report says high-poverty, racially-isolated schools on the rise nationwide
Progressive Pulse // Billy Ball
A new report from a federal government agency says racially-polarized, economically segregated schools are on the rise nationwide. As Education Week reported Tuesday, the percentage of schools primarily serving minority students and economically disadvantaged students has spiked in recent years. The report, authored by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a Congressional investigative office, also found major differences in comparisons of disciplinary measures between low-income, minority schools and their more affluent, predominantly white peer schools.