The Paradoxes of Desegregation: Race, Class, and Education, 1935-1975

Abstract

This article uses the African-American campaign for equality and access to explore the historical origins of high-stakes testing. Although decades of NAACP litigation eliminated legalized discrimination, many of the policies and practices that govern education today have their origins in responses to the NAACP's campaign against segregated education. In the years after 1945, educational authorities adopted new teacher licensure requirements; began requiring that applicants to colleges, universities, and the professions submit standardized test scores; and broadened the use of testing and tracking in elementary and secondary schools. As new, more rational restrictions replaced those once required by law, the legacies of caste--and the class divisions that developed within the black caste--shaped educational opportunities and outcomes. Although advantaged African Americans, heirs of a historic black elite, gained access to the most prestigious institutions and the most valuable programs within them, most blacks were limited by the legacies of discrimination and remained isolated in institutions, programs, and classes that became segregated by class as well as race. During the 1970s and 1980s, educational authorities built upon the foundation constructed in the 1940s and 1950s, expanding teacher, university admissions, and minimum competency testing. Instead of promoting equality, as proponents of tests argued, greater reliance on standardized exams widened the distance between advantaged and disadvantaged African Americans, shaping paradoxical patterns of inclusion and isolation.