Segregation
Rivkin
Martin
Equality of Educational Opportunity
“…sought answers to two burning questions: 1) How extensive is racial segregation within U.S. schools? 2) How adversely does that segregation affect educational opportunities for black students?” (2016, p. 29).
“Regarding the second question, Coleman reported that families were more important for learning than were school resources, and, further, that school resources varied more by region than they did by a school’s racial composition within any specific region.” (2016, p. 29).
“If we ask whether the average black student is exposed to more white students in public school today than a half century ago, the answer is yes, although fewer than in the 1980s; after rising in the 1970s, the rate of exposure has declined markedly since 1988.” (2106, p. 30).
“Another measure of progress toward integration is the dissimilarity index, which measures how much the racial composition of the schools would have to change for each school to have the same percentage of whites and blacks as these groups constitute in the school-age population as a whole.” (2016, p. 30).
“The explanation is in the changing demographic composition of the schools: the percentage of students who are white has declined dramatically over the past 50 years, while the percentage of students who are black has changed very little.” (2016, p. 30).
School Enrollment Patterns since 1968
“In 1954, the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education found legally segregated schools to be unconstitutional, but it was not until the legislative and executive branches put the full strength of the federal government behind desegregation efforts, by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that serious progress was made in the South.” (2016, p. 31).
“The dissimilarity index measures the extent to which schools and the overall student population are racially dissimilar, by calculating the percentage of blacks that would need to change schools if all schools were to have the same percentage of black students” (2016, p. 31).
Trend Data
“—the percentage of blacks who would need to change schools if blacks and whites were to attend each school in the same percentage as their percentage of public school enrollment.” (2016, p. 32).
“This school dissimilarity index fell from 81 percent to 71 percent between 1968 and 1980, when southern schools were taking strong steps to eliminate de jure segregation. And it continued to decline—albeit at a slower pace—after 1980, falling to 66 percent by 2012.” (2016, p. 32).
“Between 1968 and 2012, the percentage white of overall student enrollment in public schools dropped from 80 percent to 51 percent. Between 1988 and 2012, when the exposure index slid 9 percentage points (from 36 percent to 27 percent), the white percentage of all public-school enrollment tumbled by 20 percentage points (from 71 percent to 51 percent). “ (2016, p. 32).
“The steps taken to desegregate schools and increase black student exposure to white students were not strong enough after 1980 to offset the demographic shifts that were increasing the amount of contact between both whites and blacks and the children of immigrants from Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere.” (2016, p. 32).
White Flight and District Policies
“A pronounced increase in Hispanic and Asian public-school enrollment and consequent decline in the white enrollment share, not a pattern of resegregation, has driven the fall in the exposure of black students to white schoolmates” (2016, p. 33).
“The 1974 Supreme Court decision in Millikin v. Bradley found no constitutional violation when de facto segregation resulted from the private choices of individuals to live in one part of a metropolitan area rather than another.” (2016, p. 34).
“Housing patterns are the primary determinant of segregation among districts, but the district dissimilarity index provides only a crude measure of the extent of housing segregation.” (2016, p. 35).
“First, private school‒enrollment levels influence the measure of district segregation. Second, trends in segregation by district do not capture changes in residential segregation within districts.” (2016, p. 35).
“Among other findings, they concluded that 1) white enrollment declined much more in the year of plan implementation than in subsequent years, and 2) pairing and clustering, the desegregation technique that involved the joining of schools with initially very different black and white enrollment shares into a single attendance zone, produced the largest average white-enrollment losses surrounding plan implementation in the period of greatest desegregation activity.” (2016, p. 35).
Academic and Social Outcomes
“The Coleman Report revealed substantial achievement differences by school racial composition and emphasized the importance of considering various factors that contributed to those differences” (2016, p. 36).
“Apparently, the costs to families of moving out of the countywide district for predominantly white outlying areas are so large they more than offset any perceived advantage of escaping the changes in the demographic composition of the schools.” (2016, p. 35).
“different facilities and curricula in the school itself, variations in educational deficiency or proficiency of fellow students that are correlated with race, effects due to racial composition of the student body apart from its level of educational proficiency.” (2016, p. 36).
“The timing coincides with the desegregation of many school districts, especially in the South, but other policy, economic, and social changes may also have influenced the achievement gap.” (2016, p. 36).
“We find that black achievement levels are negatively associated with the percentage black in a grade, indicating that desegregation policies that reduced this percentage were having the desired effect.” (2016, p. 36).
“In a 2014 study, Stephen Billings and his colleagues used administrative data and variation in school assignments for students who lived on opposite sides of new catchment area boundaries in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, following the district’s release from court supervision to identify the effects of changes in racial composition and school resources.” (2016, p. 36).
“Taken as a whole, the evidence on racial composition, desegregation, and resegregation effects suggests that desegregation had a positive but likely uneven effect on academic and social outcomes.” (2016, p. 37).
Coleman’s Legacy
“Half a century has passed since the publication of the Coleman Report, and the persistent racial gaps in achievement, academic attainment, earnings, crime, poverty, and extensive school segregation that remain provide prima facie evidence that equality of opportunity remains elusive.” (2016, p. 37).
“Nevertheless, the report served as a catalyst for a fundamental change in education research and the framework within which policymakers, educators, and citizens conduct debates over education policy.” (2016, p. 37).
Introduction
“Death by residential segregation and the threat of the endurance of residential segregation as a tool to perpetuate inequality in America poses to the principle of democracy are among the most significant consequences of a legacy of the perpetuation of the myth of White superiority and Black and Brown inferiority.” (2017, p. 2).
“Numerous tangible consequences are associated with the forced separation of Blacks and Whites by place, including assaults on Black and Brown bodies, segregated community spaces, and disparate educational offerings for children.” (2017, p. 1).
“Practices such as redlining, restrictive covenants, and discrimination in the rental and sale of housing not only led to the residential segregation by race but also continue to shape Whiteness while framing narratives about what constitutes Blackness.” (2017, p. 2).
“We use White racial frame, a tenet of systematic racism theory, to explain the persistence of residential segregation amidst growing racial ethnic diversity in the United States and demonstrate why current efforts to narrow racial and ethnic gaps on a host of sociological indicators have failed.” (2017, p. 2).
“White parents have manipulated their resources within the housing sector to ensure that their children receive the benefits of suburban schooling options where higher tax bases provide a significantly more profound investment in schools.” (2017, p. 2).
“The reinvestment of urban resourses used to pay teachers also constributes to segregated educational experiences that serve to widen gaps among predominately White, Black, and Brown populations.” (2017, p. 2).
Public Policies, Individual Practices, and Racial Segregation
“FHA also created a rating system that assessed the risk level of financially investing in neighborhoods based upon the racial composition of those areas.” (2017, p. 3).
“Other financial institutions adopted the practice of redlining and kept hundreds of thousands of people of color from owning homes and out of the single largest period of mass asset accumulation in the 20th century.’ (2017, p. 3).
“The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1973) also described restrictive covenants as agreements “in which the buyer of a house promised not to see, rent, or transfer his property to families of a specific race, ethnic group, or religion” (2017, p. 3).
“In addition to the federal policies, there were also other practices that limited Blacks’ access to various housing markets and concentrated far too many into a largely rental market in vertical ghettos across America’s urban landscape” (2017, p. 3).
“The Chicago race riots that occurred in 1919 were as much about contestations over space as they were about competition for jobs and the perceived threat Blacks posed as many migrated northward” (2017, p. 3).
“Whites granted privileges by virtue of their birth into the dominant racial group in America also assisted in the creation and perpetuation of segregated communities through individual and collective practices.” (2017, p. 4).
The Civil Rights Movements: Legacy and Limitations
“The abolition of slavery and the adoption of the 14th Amendment should have been sufficient to ensure that Blacks would no longer live in bondage nor would they be treated as second-class citizens.” (2017, p. 4).
“Unfortunately, Blacks still endured slavery by another name and continued to experience unequal treatment in all areas of life, including with respect to the neighborhoods and schools to which they had access” (2017, p. 4).
“Thousands joined in protest at the senseless killing of 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was accused of and killed for whistling at a White woman” (2017, p. 4).
“The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s had a profound impact on society. The legislative victories changed how some individuals and institutions operated relative to race.” (2017, p. 4).
“Although the Voting Rights Act of 1965 put measures into place to make “one man, one vote” a reality, sections of the act are under attack today and efforts to disenfranchise black voters and other voters of color continue” (2017, p. 5).
Systematic Racism: White Racial Frame
“The point here, however, is that living in segregated communities and attending segregated schools often means that there is little contact between members of the dominant group and members of subordinate groups.” (2017, p. 5).
“White racial frame provides an analytic by which we might understand the nature of racial privilege and marginalization with respect to the role of the dominant racial group in creating and perpetuating racial residential segregation and consequently school segregation as well as to identify some tenets for forward movement that could stop or at least curb the figurative and literal deaths experienced by people of color in America” (2017, p. 5).
“Relative to residential and school segregation, many Whites point to legislative and legal actions, such as Brown v. Board, to demonstrate the de jure principle that, effectively, segregation is illegal, and consequently any appearance of segregation or separation in modern times is simply coincidence and not a product of racism.” (2017, p. 6).
“To understand the media and community discourse about those neighborhoods, the demographics are significantly shaped by people of color, the average income is significantly lower than those in other parts of the city, and it seems that the police, newspapers, and media outlets have intentionally identified those zip codes as crime riddled and dangerous” (2017, p. 6).
“Segregation of people of color in the post-Brown era has created a wealth market for those employed in the educational, housing, and prison industrial complexes (Fasching-Varner et al., 2014); at the same time, when people of color are suffering from economic hardships created by segregated schooling, housing, and law enforcements, White people across a variety of sectors are getting rich.” (2017, p. 7).
“Segregatory Realism”: Some Working Tenets
“We conclude this article with working tenets of “segregatory realism,” a realism that may address the segregation across sectors, especially housing and education, and that might serve thought interested in conceptualizing and renegotiating the ways in which reform is approached.” (2017, p. 7).
“These tenets of segratory realism are, therefore, foundational and important within the larger context that questions the very concept of democracy
a. Residential segregation is in line with the design and the demands of the society. There is, consequently, no crisis in housing or education” (2017, p. 7).
b. Community spaces where segregation occurs, such as housing and schools, will never serve or properly address the interests of the most marginalized and underrepresented of society, but they will do so for those from dominant and overrepresented factions of society. (2017, p. 8).
c. Economic imperatives are the central driving force in decisions to sort and separate the marginalized from the oppressors in housing and in schools.
d. Segregation and profiting from segregation allow for human sacrifice; populations of color and those of poor socioeconomic standing, consequently, are continually offered up in service to benefit the economic interests of Whites.
e. Even if equality were achievable, the term suggests that the dominant group is still the valued people. Equality is a ruse aimed at distracting the populous by furthering assimilationist principles geared toward the privileged.
f. Equity is the only course of action that can counterbalance the racist underpinnings of segregation.
Conclusion
“Residential segregation is arguably one of the most misunderstood concepts in our society and, at the same time, is one of the most deadly for people of color and to the principle and structure of democracy in the United States.” (2017, p. 8).
“The isolation of communities of color from members of the dominant group often means that communities of color are subject to more environmental hazards, aggressive policing tactics, underresourced schools, greater stressors that lead to lower life expectancies as well as the exacerbation of existing chronic health issues, limited life chances and opportunities, and ultimately even greater premature death, relative to Whites.” (2017, p. 9).
“Within a democracy often lie the values, rights, and privileges that, if leveraged, can result in a sea change. Sadly, the revolutionary and transformative changes that are required are rarely achieved, and instead, minority groups must instead live with what scholar Bell called “peaks of progress,” which in the end only occur because they serve the interest of those in positions of power and authority” (2017, p. 9).