Rick Dean
Registered
16
http://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga/plaindea...85423201291.xml
Schools becoming racially isolated
04/25/04
Scott Stephens
Plain Dealer Reporter
University Heights- A half-century after the U.S. Supreme Court found segregated schools to be "inherently unequal," public schools are swinging back toward racial isolation, a Harvard law professor said Saturday.
"Since the late 1980s, public schools in the U.S. are becoming increasingly segregated again," Christopher Edley Jr., co-founder and director of the Civil Righ
s Project at Harvard University, said at a symposium at John Carroll University.
The one-day forum, sponsored by JCU and Cleveland State University's Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, is o
ne
f several events marking the 50th anniversary of the landmark Brown vs. Board of Educa
tion next month. For some, the celebration is bittersweet - there are no desegregation cases pending in U.S. courts, and many districts have quietly abandoned desegregation plans from the 1960s and '70s.
But re-segregation of public education should be cause for concern, Edley said. Black and Latino youngsters, who will constitute the majority of students by the middle of this century, are consigned to the most intensely segregated schools in high-poverty areas.
Research shows those conditions are powerfully tied to unequal educational opportunities.
In Ohio, for instance, only 40 percent of black high school students graduate with regular diplomas on time - one of the four worst rates in
the nation, said Edley, who worked on race issues for the administrations of presidents Clinton and Carter.
Much of Saturday's conference was devoted to discussion of the Cleveland school
s de
segregati
on case in which the district and state were found to be operating an intentionally segregated
school system. The case ended in 2000 after decades of court-ordered remedies such as busing, magnet schools and programs aimed at black students.
"I contend we didn't go far enough," said James Hardiman, the lawyer who filed the case for the NAACP on behalf of black students and their parents. "If the Cleveland schools were under federal jurisdiction, maybe black children would be reading at the same level as white children."
The ideals of Brown have produced enough success to offer hope. The Shaker Heights schools were among the first in the nation to integrate voluntarily. Despite a gap between test scores of black and white students, the district retains a nati
onal reputation for academics, and its graduates say going to school in an integrated environment changed their lives.
"There's a gain, and there's a gain for everybody,&
quot; Su
perintendent Mark
Freeman said. "That's a marvelous legacy of Brown."
http://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga/plaindea...85423201291.xml
Schools becoming racially isolated
04/25/04
Scott Stephens
Plain Dealer Reporter
University Heights- A half-century after the U.S. Supreme Court found segregated schools to be "inherently unequal," public schools are swinging back toward racial isolation, a Harvard law professor said Saturday.
"Since the late 1980s, public schools in the U.S. are becoming increasingly segregated again," Christopher Edley Jr., co-founder and director of the Civil Righ
s Project at Harvard University, said at a symposium at John Carroll University.
The one-day forum, sponsored by JCU and Cleveland State University's Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, is o
ne
f several events marking the 50th anniversary of the landmark Brown vs. Board of Educa
tion next month. For some, the celebration is bittersweet - there are no desegregation cases pending in U.S. courts, and many districts have quietly abandoned desegregation plans from the 1960s and '70s.
But re-segregation of public education should be cause for concern, Edley said. Black and Latino youngsters, who will constitute the majority of students by the middle of this century, are consigned to the most intensely segregated schools in high-poverty areas.
Research shows those conditions are powerfully tied to unequal educational opportunities.
In Ohio, for instance, only 40 percent of black high school students graduate with regular diplomas on time - one of the four worst rates in
the nation, said Edley, who worked on race issues for the administrations of presidents Clinton and Carter.
Much of Saturday's conference was devoted to discussion of the Cleveland school
s de
segregati
on case in which the district and state were found to be operating an intentionally segregated
school system. The case ended in 2000 after decades of court-ordered remedies such as busing, magnet schools and programs aimed at black students.
"I contend we didn't go far enough," said James Hardiman, the lawyer who filed the case for the NAACP on behalf of black students and their parents. "If the Cleveland schools were under federal jurisdiction, maybe black children would be reading at the same level as white children."
The ideals of Brown have produced enough success to offer hope. The Shaker Heights schools were among the first in the nation to integrate voluntarily. Despite a gap between test scores of black and white students, the district retains a nati
onal reputation for academics, and its graduates say going to school in an integrated environment changed their lives.
"There's a gain, and there's a gain for everybody,&
quot; Su
perintendent Mark
Freeman said. "That's a marvelous legacy of Brown."
