U.S. schools are still segregated
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By T.J. BLACKMORE May 17 marked the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that ended the “separate but equal” doctrine that allowed districts to segregate schools based on race. The landmark 1954 ruling served as a stepping stone in the rise of the civil rights movement.
But today, despite the many gains made by the civil rights movement, the goal of desegregating the education system remains elusive. According to a report by Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute, schools now are more segregated than any time since 1970.
President Obama’s Race to the Top education policy— which promotes charter schools, high stakes testing, and the new Common Core State Standards—is only exac erbating the problem of school segregation. Research conducted over the last seven years by the University of California, Los Angeles’ Civil Rights Project reveals that charter schools are more racially isolated than tradition al public schools in virtually every state and large metro politan area in the nation.
A large body of research also shows that charter schools, on average, do not out-perform traditional public schools (Gill et al., 2007; Gleason, Clark, Tuttle, & Dwoyer, 2010). Additionally, despite receiving vast amounts of public money, charter schools’ financial books are not open to the public, and little, if any, oversight is provided by school districts or state departments of education.
A report issued on May 5 by the Center for Popular De mocracy and Integrity in Education documents waste, fraud, and abuse by charter school executives in 15 states, amounting to over $100 million in taxpayer mon ey. And that report doesn’t even cover the remaining 27 states that publicly fund charter schools.
On May 9, the House of Representatives passed a bill with overwhelming bipartisan support that would pro vide an additional $300 million in funds for expanding charter schools. There are now more than 2.5 million students attending more than 6400 charter schools in 42 states. New Orleans will become the first city to com pletely run an entire district with only charter schools; the last five public schools have closed their doors this month.
Journey for Justice Alliance, a coalition of community organizations, is filing complaints under Title IV and Ti tle VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the Department of Justice that cite school closures that disproportionally affect communities of color in New Orleans, Newark, and Chicago.
The vast amount of evidence concerning charter schools, their academic performance, and criminal mis use of public funds makes clear that President Obama and our elected officials are less concerned with improv ing education, desegregating schools, and creating an equitable education system than they are with lining the pockets of their corporate masters. n SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 2014 5