Re-Segregation In Public Schools

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” This simple statement conveys the concern of re-segregation engaging the American public school system. The historical case of Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education removed the notion of separate schools for whites and black, and deemed it unconstitutional. Today, this pertains not only to black and white, but to Latino and Asian students; were as, “Black and Latino students tend to be in schools with a substantial majority of poor children, while white and Asian students typically attend middle class schools.” 1 America, the pride of equality throughout the world, seems to be turning the other cheek when it comes to this crisis reopening

the segregated door. In order to improve the American school systems and establish a more desegregated environment for education, improvements in our living society integration, and to the betterment of schooling with teacher tenures need to be addressed.

Segregation within schools can be a direct link to the separation within our suburbs, which will allow the deprived to intricate into middle class school systems. Race relations in America between whites at 41 percent and blacks at 48 percent agree that it is in a bad state. 2 This supports the integration problem today of many races moving to places surrounded by their own race. “Government and private enforcers of fair housing laws have demonstrated the continuing existence of housing discrimination and a range of other discriminatory factors,” factors that “have disproportionately limited the choices of people of color.” 3 Between the 1960s and

1970s when the civil rights movement was at its peak, New Jersey tried making housing more affordable within middle class communities. Research showed, “low-income tenants who live in Mount Laurel thanks to the ruling have had their lives and educations transformed for the better, while affluent locals have suffered no ill effect”.4 Many people will argue that when it comes to where people establish or buy their homes, they prefer to live next to people similar to themselves. This limits families to a one-sided life while not exposing the children to diverse races, and as a result, misunderstandings about other cultures occur. Connecting the past with the present, one-sided views instead of mixed views leads to racism and segregation between races, such as society before the civil rights movement and to the extent of today. Less diversity within suburbs and communities is dangerous and ensures a gap within our schools inhabiting the lower class’s inabilities to receive equal middle class education.
Inside both lower and middle class schools are the fundamental pillars that hold the structure of learning together; the teachers.

A student merely does not just learn through textbooks and readings, but from the addition of pursuit and challenges exposed by the love of the teacher. Latinos and Blacks, “attend what it identified as ‘intensely segregated’ schools, where minorities make up 90 to 100 percent of the student body.” 5 Granted, many teachers may not want to face the pressure and strain of the poor community school systems. As a result, there is, ‘“the dance of the lemons,’ bouncing the worst teachers from school to school. Because the poorest schools have difficulty retaining teachers, they too often end up with the teachers no one else wants.” 6 California and many other states have teacher tenure laws that disable the ability to remove poor teachers from their schools. Recently, a case was made about the California tenure of teachers on a state court that ruled the teachers’ tenure as unconstitutional. “The system deprives minority and low-income students of an equal education.” 7 The opposed believe that the tenure allows creativity, safety, and freedom for the teachers. In this case, stricter evaluations or monitoring of teachers should be implemented to ensure proper educational learning factors made available or attempted toward the students. Furthermore, the low-income schools’ resources do not compare to middle class. “Studies have shown that if a school

district provides sufficient resources to poorer schools with high minority populations and supports its teachers, it can close the achievement gap.”.6 By integrating middle class schools with lower class students, then equal education as well as desegregation will benefit the future. As long as students strive in their academic endeavors, teachers and schools must be accountable for educating and actions must be taken to uphold higher standards of our learning environments to lessen the gap between the seemingly growing outcomes of segregated schools.
Diversifying integration in America’s society and maintaining the newly ruled tenure structure with improvements on teachers and schooling overall will lead to the divorce of re-segregation. The civil rights movement along with Brown vs. Board of Education is a landmark accomplishment of the United States. A driving force backed by motivated people to visualize a change for the better of civilization, and that is what America needs again to stop segregation from resurrecting; inspired people and explanation to the public minds. Regarding society discrimination towards blacks, 14 percent of whites and 41 percent of blacks said there is a lot of discrimination. 51 percent of whites and 47 percent said only some discrimination.2 Subsequently, with America on track to become a “minority majority” in the future with the presence of all types of backgrounds, including the Latinos, “now significantly more segregated than blacks”,7 these numbers with Latinos, not just black and white, would be even higher. Now is the time for the government and people to act, or revert back to the lesser society of the past.