Accountability and Desegregation: Brown and Its Legacy

Abstract

Brown v. Board of Education (Brown I) was decided in 1954 by the United States Supreme Court to order the desegregation of students by race in public schools. Opposition to this order occurred in many of the states as well as from the Office of the President in the 1980s, Over time, alternatives to educating students have surfaced, some of which have the potential for under-mining the original ruling in the Brown decision. National support of education has come in the form of spending legislation that favors accountability and achievement over racial equity with newly funded schools virtually free to carry on the same discrimination as in the past. This article offers an analysis of these trends in American education, exposing the paradox of how an emphasis on supposed achievement trumps equality with quality. Within the current government activity, students of color will be doubtful recipients of either equality of opportunity or greater educator accountability. INTRODUCTION American education from its privately sponsored beginnings was shrouded in a competitive atmosphere, focusing on the best and the brightest, with the idea that students must be the successors and eventual caretakers of the nation's leadership future (Smith, 1776). As a nationwide concept, publicly supported education was forged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Goldstein, Gee, & Daniel, 1995). From its inception, however, students of color were scarcely included; through the 1950s such students faced a very limited education or a very segregated education based on state law and 19th century judicial doctrine (Daniel, 1980). The United States Supreme Court decision in Brown sought to arrest this trend and announced that the various states must cease discriminatory practices and educate all students on equal terms. The Court also overturned itself, moving from a ruling that imposed separation of the races to one where such differentiation was deemed to be unconstitutional (Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896). Just about the time of this proposed judicially ordered desegregation, however, America's schools were perceived as being in a state of crisis. On the one hand, public schools were failing in the successful promotion of achievement for students, and, on the other, school-choice options for improvement were sorely lacking in the country. This collective view has been perpetuated with various reports condemning the inadequacy of education notably for students most in peril within the current system. .Accountability and choice have become the new by-words in American education with each promoting reform for all pupils, especially at-risk students and students of color. On this 50th anniversary of the decision of Brown v. Board of Education (Brown I) it is a fitting imperative that there be an examination of the value of education especially since the quality of the experience helps to define our lives as well as our quotidian existence. This article focuses on the intersection of the concepts of accountability and choice, denoting their impact on students of color in the United States. The impact of choice and accountability on desegregation has been largely ignored by legal scholarship. Moreover, while much has been written on the education of students of color, only a modest amount of research has focused on whether charter schools have the capacity to ameliorate both the prospect of educational progress and the continued problem of racial desegregation. Initial sections of the current study examine government in the advancement of appropriate educational reform for all students. This research also addresses American education in terms of reactions to reform; this includes examination of legislation addressing academic accountability as well as judicial response to the country's enduring segregation of students by race. Questions remain, for example, as to whether accountability and reform foster student achievement at the sacrifice of educational equality. …