All-black Schools Research Articles

Domesticating Difference: Performing Memories of School Desegregation

The early steps of mandated school desegregation, during the freedom of choice period (1965–1969), began with black teachers going into all-white schools and white teachers going into all-black schools. This essay takes up the memory performances of one of the first white teachers in the all-black Marian Anderson High School in rural Camden County, North Carolina. Specifically the essay explores how these performances as they reinvent the past open possibilities for interrupting historic performances of whiteness. At the same time, such performances also risk the reinstantiation of white authority in the present, particularly through the use of humor and the domestication of difference.

History through Red Eyes: A Conversation with James Loewen

JAMES Loewen is an author, historian, and professor. Through Lies My Teacher Told Me, he has helped to reconstruct the way history is viewed and taught in public schools all across America. During a recent conversation, he shared his views on how American Indian topics and events are traditionally taught and offered his insights into what we can do to accommodate multiple perspectives in our examination of history. Below, I present his comments and insights as he told them to me. My first teaching assignment was at Tougaloo College, a historically black institution in Tougaloo, Mississippi. In my first year, I taught a course developed by the history department that was titled Freshman Social Science Seminar. In it we introduced students to sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, and psychology in the context of African American history. This made sense because 99% of our students were African American. The second semester of the course began with events immediately following the Civil War. I had a new group of students in the second semester, and I didn't want to do all the talking on the first day of class, so I asked them, We're starting with Reconstruction. is that period? followed was an Aha! experience for me. Or it might be better called an Oh no! experience. Sixteen out of 17 students said, was that period right after the Civil War when blacks took over the government of the Southern states. But they were too soon out of slavery, so they screwed up, and white folks had to take control again. Now, there are at least three complete misstatements--lies I would call them--in that sentence, and I was just floored by it. Blacks never took over the government of the Southern states; the Reconstruction governments did not, on the whole, screw up; and didn't resume control at the end of Reconstruction. However, a certain group of whites did take control, using terrorist tactics. It was, in fact, the original Ku Klux Klan. So I thought, What must your teachers have done to you to make you believe that the one time your group was center stage in American history, they screwed up, and had to take control back again? If it were true, that would be fine. But it is not true. these students had learned we might call BS--that would be Bad Sociology--in the black public schools. they had learned was being taught by black teachers in all-black schools. But it was white supremacist history because their teachers were just blindly teaching what was in the textbooks. Seeing the outcome made me aware that history can be a weapon and that it can be used against you, just as it had been against my black students. When I put together a team of students and faculty members at Tougaloo and Millsaps College (a nearby all-white college), we confronted the lies and myths in Mississippi history by writing a new history textbook for the Mississippi history course that was required in public schools. But our book just wasn't racist enough, so the state refused to adopt it. Because Mississippi is a textbook-adoption state, we actually had to sue to get it adopted. The case was Loewen et al. v. Turnipseed et al. After eight years in Mississippi, I moved to the University of Vermont, where I continued to teach first-year students in huge introductory sociology classes. There I learned that distorted history was not a phenomenon peculiar to Mississippi. Although in the early 1970s Mississippi exhibited it in a more exaggerated form--as Mississippi exhibited many national maladies in a more exaggerated form back then--this was a national problem. As I had done in Mississippi, I went to nearby high schools to learn where my students were getting the bizarre ideas they brought to college. Many of these ideas had to do with savage Indians. Lies My Teacher Told Me is based on my intensive reading of 12 high school American history textbooks. …

The Third Little Rock Crisis

IN SEPTEMBER 1958, I was poised to enter my senior Hall High School in Little Rock. My sophomore of 1956-57 had been spent the famous Central High School. That was the before the Little Rock Nine were admitted to Central High and federal troops were deployed to enforce the Brown decisions.1 During the of the Little Rock Nine, which was the 1957-58 school year, I attended Hall, the new all-white high school in Little Rock. Hall had been built in the affluent part of the city. There were no black students enrolled that as there were in Central. This, in itself, was a significant bone of contention with some Central High parents. Nor were there white students enrolled the newly constructed all-black high school, Horace Mann. As I waited into the second week of September 1958 for the school to begin, it dawned on my parents that the three Little Rock high schools would not open that school year. On August 28, 1958, the Little Rock School Board had argued in favor of a two-and-a-half-year delay in implementing the Brown decisions before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Cooper v. Aaron. Judith Kilpatrick and Elizabeth Jacoway have discussed this case in more depth. Suffice it to say that the Supreme Court refused to delay desegregation in Little Rock and ordered it to proceed forthwith.2 Arkansas's governor, Orval Faubus, had called the General Assembly into special session to enact a package of legislation to thwart integration. One bill authorized the governor to close any school where integration had been ordered.3 After the court's decision in Cooper v. Aaron was announced, Faubus signed the act authorizing him to close public schools affected by integration, and he shut down the Little Rock high schools by proclamation on September 12, 1958. A special election of the voters of the Little Rock School District subsequently affirmed his actions. As a result, a generation of Little Rock students was put at sea, struggling to determine how and where we could pursue our secondary education. My class became known as the Lost Class of '59. It was not until the spring of 1959 that certain leaders of the Little Rock business community moved into high gear. Little Rock had received an international black eye because of the crisis, and business development and city growth were a standstill. These business leaders and a group of extraordinarily brave women known as the Women's Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools worked diligently to reopen schools and correct the situation. They were successful in ousting segregationist members of the school board and retaining moderate school board members.4 The result was that the high schools reopened in August 1959, with both Hall and Central admitting black students. The crisis Central and the crisis of the lost year had passed. But were the crises over? In 1965, black parents of the Little Rock School District filed suit in federal district court contending that their children were being denied enrollment in white schools and relegated instead to black neighborhood schools.5 Since that time, the Clark litigation, as it has become known, has continued in various forms and consisted of federal court review of whether various plans put forth by the school district and other interested parties were constitutional. Those plans included student assignments based on geographic attendance zones, plans that alternated between busing students to schools in heavily white and heavily black neighborhoods depending on the grade, and plans for elementary schools that included four all-black schools in order to allow for better black/white ratios in the remaining schools. For the most part, these plans were approved by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit with certain modifications.6 In many respects, then, the first crisis of Little Rock continues to have a ripple effect on public education in my city as well as on the central Arkansas economy in general. …

The Memories of an All-Black Northern Urban School

Until recently, educational historians have not thoroughly examined the actual schooling practices of all-Black schools. A majority of the work on Black education history has focused on the South. Very few scholars have examined all-Black schools before the Brown decision in an urban context. This research focused on unearthing the history of an all-Black de facto segregated school in Columbus, Ohio. This examination of actual schooling characteristics and practices of an all-Black school before Brown may assist educational scholars in implementing factors important to the success of Black youth.

Notes from the Back of the Room: Problems and Paradoxes in the Schooling of Young Black Students

This article examines common teacher practices and black elementary-age students' responses to these practices in considering processes of social reproduction in schools. In an ethnographic study of two all-black schools, the author found that both schools expressed a strong commitment to creating a positive and self-affirming learning environment for black students, with an explicit emphasis on building self-esteem as a means of enhancing academic performance. However, both schools also unwittingly undermined that commitment by suppressing what were deemed inappropriate behaviors and conveying messages of black cultural deviance to students in the interest of discipline and conformity to particular mainstream cultural norms

A ‘Communally Bonded’ School for African American Students, Families, and a Community

Not all urban schools that serve African American communities are the disasters portrayed in the media. Mr. Morris shares insights he has gleaned from a seven-year study of Elementary School in St. a school that has successfully with its community. THE CAMPUS grounds and the ambience of Elementary School, located in what is known as North St. Louis, differ vastly from the images of inner-city schooling presented regularly in news accounts.1 The shiny hardwood floors and the immaculate hallways defy the pervasive perceptions of urban and predominantly African American schools -- the types of conditions that are vividly depicted in Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities and Amy Stuart Wells and Robert Crain's Stepping over the Color Line.2 In contrast to the situations portrayed in Jean Anyon's account of urban schools in Ghetto Schooling, the mostly African American educators at have not given up on the the system, and, most important, the children.3 Since 1994 I have been engaged in an extensive study of Elementary School. is not a perfect school. As in many urban schools that enroll primarily low-income students, the educators contend daily with external factors that affect what goes on inside the school. However, Farragut is a good school, as a parent notes. In this article, I will show how school personnel have communally bonded with African American families and the surrounding community to foster an academically supportive environment for the predominantly African American and low-income student population.4 I will then discuss how my investigation into Elementary School extends to the broader issues of urban education, academic excellence, parent and community involvement, and the color line in the 21st century. Building on the Past Elementary School creates a sense of pride for African American people in the nearby community, much like the pride that many formerly all-black schools once represented for black people.5 boasts a strong academic reputation, which also was present in some of the segregated, all-black schools that we (academics, educators, and policy makers) know too little about. Although parents from the attendance zone near the school have the option of sending their children to magnet or predominantly white county schools as part of a voluntary desegregation plan, very few parents from the community have exercised that option. Instead, they have chosen and are satisfied with the quality of education their children receive in the school.6 Students at also have one of the highest attendance rates in the city and consistently outperform students at other schools in the St. Louis public schools -- including magnet schools -- on traditional measures such as standardized tests.7 Is Elementary School an anomaly? And how does the communal bonding between the school and the community contribute to the rich and rewarding educational experience for African American students? Initially, I attempted to use existing school/family partnership models to describe what I observed at Elementary School, but this school did not fit those models. I talked with friends and shared findings with colleagues but stumbled when attempting to describe the nature of the bonding between the African American families, and the nearby community. Then I realized that the difficulty might have stemmed from the way school and family connections are traditionally viewed in the academic and educational communities. The larger society is not aware of the historical context in which functions. In the midst of pervasive societal racism and discriminatory practices -- which resulted in separate and grossly unequal facilities -- many segregated, all-black schools served as stabilizing institutions for African American communities, and those communities shared in the ownership of the local black schools. …

Equal Access to State Funding: The case of Muslim schools in Britain

The decision to award government funding to four independent Muslim schools in Britain placed the spotlight on the issue of the public purse being used for private institutions, and also brought to an end the 15-year battle that Muslim communities waged in order to receive equality of treatment. This article provides an overview of this movement and highlights the issues surrounding equitable treatment of minority groups in society. There are presently around 100 independent Muslim schools in Britain today, a percentage of which have applied for voluntary-aided status and have aspired to fulfil government criteria. Up until 1998 they have always failed, often on spurious grounds which were not used to deny funding to other schools. The Conservative Government was confused in its thinking on the issue, declaring that it was uncomfortable providing finance for what would be an all-black (Asian) school, and that such institutions would be socially divisive (Swann report, 1985). These arguments lacked basis on two counts. Firstly, Muslim schools are faith-based schools drawing upon people hugely differentiated on grounds of cultural, socio-economic and linguistic background. Secondly, apart from the decision to award funding previously being articulated erroneously in discourses of race rather than religion, Asian schools were already a reality in Britain. Demographically, due to patterns of immigration, Muslim communities have concentrated in areas around the country and there were, and still are, local state schools with enrolments of 95% or more Muslim pupils. The decision to provide funding for Muslim schools thus needs to be located within a social justice model, whereby financial support is forthcoming for all religious schools which satisfy existing government criteria on health, safety and education, rather than on grounds of racial/ethnic origin. In short, we either provide equality before the law, or we dismantle existing legislation and embrace a 'common school' for all. There are compelling arguments for both cases, but we cannot have it both ways: what is required is state policy based on consistency and equity to ensure parity of treatment. Finally, the Labour Government's decision in favour of Muslim schools carries with it implications for Sikh, Hindu and potentially other groups, who give expression to the reality of a multifaith Britain, and who may also wish to have equal access to state funding. This requires examining more critically the concept of 'multiculturalism' today, away from the more naive notion that the rhetoric of equal opportunities in the 1980s would somehow easily be translated into reality.

No Excuse for No Excuses

For more than 20 years, the Heritage Foundation has been promoting myths such as the Marva Collins story. Now, in No Excuses, Heritage rehashes discredited nonsense, Mr. Schmidt charges. IT AMAZES me that the Heritage Foundation can even attempt to continue the double talk regarding the three Chicago schools offered in No Excuses - let alone dispatch a publicist to reply to Gerald Bracey's Kappan critique (see the exchange in Backtalk, January 2001). If Chicago's versions of No Excuses are an indication of what is going on elsewhere, the books have been cooked by the Heritage researchers. The disturbing facts regarding both George Washington and Amelia Earhart elementary schools are available for anyone who wants to consult the website of the Chicago Public Schools and do a little analysis. In both cases, the in test scores took place during a unique time when the number of students tested was reduced significantly, as Bracey pointed out. Both schools had high-powered principals who were well aware of the consequences of getting the numbers right. Between 1990 and 1998, according to the Chicago Board of Education's school data (available through the Office of Accountability section of the Chicago Public Schools website), the number of students at Earhart increased from 150 to 248. The number whose Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) scores were reported, however, increased only from 91 to 103. The gains praised by No Excuses were probably made in this all-too- typical fashion: students expected to score low were excluded from the test. Moreover, both Earhart and Washington elementary schools are typical of the middle-class schools that Chicago has among its nearly 600 public schools. Neither has anything to teach America about the hard-core schools of the poorest ghettos and barrios. Anyone who knows Chicago knows that the communities in which Earhart and Washington are located are not in the heart of Chicago's inner city. Anyone who wishes to join me on a tour of the community north of Earhart can see the very expensive homes and equally expensive landscapes and cars that go with them. Black Chicago is not one uniform, impoverished ghetto. It is offensive that No Excuses presents Earhart - a middle-class school in a middle-class community - as if it were in the heart of the ghetto with all the attendant problems of poverty simply because it is an all-black school. This white blind spot is typical of the way the data are rendered. In addition, Earhart's success is measured by the percentage at or above national on the ITBS reading test. It is now widely known that, during the period of Earhart's gains, Chicago refused to use the newest norms for the ITBS and continued using the same old tests over and over. …

The Persistent Dream: A Principal's Promising Reform of an At-Risk Elementary Urban School

A principal's promising reform program that led to dramatic changes in student success in a K-6 elementary school on academic alert was investigated. This study was established to determine how an academically at-risk school that is facing state takeover has been strengthened. The researcher asked, what principles are at work in the changes the instructional leader instituted at her school, what actions did the principal take to improve the school climate, and, is there lasting substance to the new programs? The principal was "shadowed" in the school site and was engaged in conversation and writing. This article identifies 8 strategies that have been implemented for improving the school's climate. Findings suggest that this all-Black school could become a model to show that at-risk children can learn with the appropriate programs in place spearheaded by a team of effective practitioners.

From Roberts to Plessy: Educational Segregation and the "Separate but Equal" Doctrine

segregation era was a contradictory period in American legal history. For almost one hundred years, courts had the necessary language, the Fourteenth Amendment, needed to outlaw the institutional separation of African-Americans from European-Americans. Yet, the nation had to wait until 1954 when the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education ruled that segregation deprived African-Americans of the protection of the laws, which had been guaranteed by the language of the Fourteenth Amendment.' In this decision, the separation of the races by law in public education was ruled to be unconstitutional. Education also served as the foundation of segregation as rulings on the legality of schools for African-Americans in the 19th Century resulted in the legal argument that was used to justify segregation: separate but equal. Leonard Levy and Harlan Phillips in their influential article The Roberts Case: Source of the 'Separate but Equal' Doctrine wrote that the first judicial opinion that used the separate but equal doctrine was Roberts v. City of Boston in 1849. This decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld segregated public education in Boston, Massachusetts and its reasoning was utilized by many state courts to uphold educational segregation. Moreover, Roberts was used as the leading precedent by the Plessy majority to nationally institutionalize separate but equal.2 Despite the influence of their argument, Levy and Phillips never demonstrated exactly how state courts utilized and modified the Roberts ruling nor did they focus on how the Fourteenth Amendment affected the logic used in the separate but equal doctrine. This study attempts to fill that void. Boston's segregated school system was originally not established by whites, but rather by the growing number of free African-Americans settling in the city. An independent school for African-Americans was first established in 1800. Boston Public School Committee annexed the institution in 1812 and began to assign every African-American grammar school-aged child to the school.3 Another all-black school was built in 1835.

A Pillar of Strength

From an in-depth qualitative study in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1994 to 1997, this article highlights how one all-Black school creates and sustains strong communal bonds with African American families from a low-income community. Reminiscent of the “goodness” of many all-Black schools before Brown, this school—Fairmont Elementary—sustains strong communal bonds with families and is a stabilizing force for the community. The message gleaned from this study of Fairmont Elementary School is that the “goodness” of a school for African American families and students may also be defined by the strength and the nature of that school’s communal bonds with Black families and communities.

All-Black Schools Provide Role Models: Is this the Solution?

raditional two-parent families in America, reflecting a worldwide trend, are in a serious state of decline (Bronfenbrenner 1991). Although disputing causes, most experts agree that children's welfare is seriously suffering from this development (Etzioni 1992; Popenoe 1988, 1993; Leach 1994; Elkind 1992). Those families with the least resources and support systems are suffering the most (Wilson 1987; Moynihan 1993'; Carnegie 1994), particularly African Americans and other involuntary minorities (Ogbu 1978; Ingrassia 1994; Gresham 1994). Erik Erikson's psychosocial theory of development maintains that appropriate role models are necessary for children, particularly during adolescence (Powell 1983; Comer and Poussaint 1992). Yet in 1989 more than half of all black children, almost one-third of Hispanic children, and about 20 percent of white children lived in single-parent families (Lewin 1990; U.S. Census 1988). The figure for children living with a single parent who had never been married rose 85 percent between 1983 and 1993. In 1993, 6.3 million children were living in such homes, almost as many as the 6.8 million living with single parents who had been divorced, according to a recent U.S. Census report (U.S. Census 1993). This report also showed that the median two-parent family income was $43,578, as opposed to $9,272 for a never-married, single-parent family. This illustrates one of America's most urgent social problems: the lack of economic support and the absence of positive role models for many children, particularly inner-city black boys (Clark 1965; Rainwater and Yancey 1967; Kunjufu 1986; Moynihan 1993). An even more urgent problem is the increasing number of zero-parent children, concentrated in inner cities, where single mothers are becoming crack addicts, going to jail, or leaving their children for other reasons. These children now make up about 9 percent of all children (Gross 1992).

The second promise ofbrown

This article describes the cultural consequences of the local school closing in a predominantly black community (Centerville) as a result of desegregation policies. Based on oral accounts of community members, the author unearths the diverse functions the former all-black school used to have in the community. Furthermore, the possible reasons for the nostalgia with which the community remembers its “own” school are analyzed. It is shown why the predominantly white schools to which today's students are bused cannot possibly “pass the test” of comparison with the former community school. And finally, the article reminds us of two promises ofBrown, only one of which has been fulfilled in the case of Centerville. While racial segregation of schooling was indeed abolished in Centerville, the second promise ofBrown—providing equal educational opportunities for all children irrespective of race—remains elusive at best. And the very institution that would be central to fulfilling the second promise ofBrown—a school for which the town feels a sense of ownership—was closed for the sake of desegregation.

Two Cheers for Community

I'm tired of being black, a musician recently told Donna Britt, a columnist for Washington Post (1 March 1994). As they talked, Britt realized that man's weariness had less do with blacks' treatment by whites than with how he has been treated by other blacks. Grade school classmates beat him up for being frail, articulate, and well-read; later, acquaintances rebuffed him for crime of not fitting the stereotype of a rebellious, young black man. He said: I've experienced white racism. But it's been nowhere near as stressful as going an all-black school where there was pressure be 'cool,' and conform a rigid set of standards that have nothing do with what I wanted.... During '70s, when black unity was being celebrated, thugs tried beat knowledge and eloquence out of me. The musician keenly experienced conflict between community and autonomy, or, as he put it, pressure to conform a rigid set of standards that have nothing do with what I wanted. A community flourishes extent that its members identify with it and conform its norms, mores, and sensibilities. Autonomy is thought lie in one's ability define one's goals regardless of how well they conform community norms. In United States, Jews who do not support Israel, homosexuals who prefer remain closeted, and even women who want be housewives may experience a kind of peer pressure something like that of which black musician complained. In traditional societies, individuals may likewise resent group expectations; for example, women may seek free themselves from gender roles they find oppressive. Anyone born into an ethnic, cultural, religious, or national community may wish escape its confines by joining other associations, or by assimilating into a larger, cosmopolitan public. Historically, individualistic instinct of liberalism has tended favor goal of autonomy over community where these values conflict. Liberals have found much admire in impartiality of merchant whom everyone with a dollar has appropriate religion, ethnic background, nationality, and sexual preference. Liberals have favored melting pot and refused back religious and cultural authorities with cold steel of law. Nevertheless, liberalism has evolved accommodate communities in at least two ways. First, in pursuing social diversity--for example, by adopting affirmative action programs rather than a code of color blindness--liberals recognize importance of ascriptive groups in relation political justice. …

The Implementation of Desegregation Plans Since Brown

IntroductionWhen Supreme Court overturned doctrine of separate but equal in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (Brown I) (1954) as violation of Equal Protection Clause of 14th Amendment, it fashioned decision with no immediate relief. The question of relief was set for reargument, and an invitation to submit briefs to aid in formulation of relief was extended to attorneys general of United States and states where de jure school segregation was imposed. Although reargument was held year later in Brown II (1955), Court still failed to provide clear guidelines to end de jure segregation in public schools. Instead, it required only a prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance (p. 300). Thus, whether Black student could be admitted to formerly all-White school or vice versa constituted desegregation was left unanswered. The Court provided no definitions of desegregation and no guidance regarding how it was to be accomplished.The issue was further confounded by Court's now-famous admonishment to states to use all deliberate speed in implementing mandates of Brown II (p. 301). This phrase soon took on mantel of black humor: Blacks, it was noted, wanted speed, while Whites wanted to be deliberate. Brown II, with its high-sounding phrases founded on notion that school systems would make good-faith efforts to comply with mandates of Brown I, became more symbol of victory than definitive statement or direction for remedy.Following Brown II, White community, with few guidelines from courts, moved deliberately. As would be expected, little desegregation happened. Still, even though little was happening and even less planning was being done, some progress was made. Amidst flurry of state laws obstructing desegregation, political posturing by elected officials, retaliation against civil rights lawyers, and open defiance by local citizen groups, most of southern states previously operating under de jure segregation took some affirmative actions.One of early tests of Brown arose in Little Rock, Arkansas, where desegregation plan formulated by local school authorities was opposed by state legislature and by governor, who called in National Guard to prevent Black students from attending formerly all-White high school. The governor's actions were enjoined by federal district court. Subsequently, in Cooper v. Aaron (1958), Supreme Court unanimously held that desegregation in Little Rock was to proceed and that Brown could not be overcome by state legislative actions. However, like Brown, Cooper provided no guidelines as to what constituted desegregated school. Hence, many districts proceeded with notion that accepting few assigned or voluntary Black student transfers into formerly all-White schools satisfied requirements of Brown.As years following Brown passed with little appreciable change in racial makeup of former de jure school systems, Court became impatient. In McNeese v. Board of Education for Community Unit School District 187, Chaokia, Illinois (1963), Court held that it was not necessary to exhaust administrative remedies in school desegregation cases before relief could be sought in federal court. McNeese was quickly followed by Griffin v. Prince Edward County Board of Education (1964), in which Court held that the time for mere 'deliberate speed' had run out (p. 234). Despite these stern words, however, little significant desegregation occurred.FREEDOM OF CHOICELittle was accomplished in initial desegregation efforts following Brown because no clear judicial guidelines were set forth. While few districts attempted to desegregate by allowing handful of Blacks to attend formerly all-White schools on voluntary basis, no efforts were made to assign or entice White children to attend formerly all-Black schools. …

Epilogue: Brown at the Threshold of the 21st Century: Enduring or Withering Legacy?

Perhaps no Supreme Court decision has generated more controversy and conflict over such a protracted period of time as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954). Few decisions of that Court have brought about as much fundamental social change, and certainly none have touched as many families and educational institutions across so many communities. However, from the very outset, Brown has not been easily accepted by all those whose interests it promised to affect. Appreciable disagreements continue to persist regarding the meaning of the Court's ruling in the case, the assumptions on which it was predicated, and its effectiveness in promoting school integration and equal and equitable educational opportunities. This should not be surprising. Unanimity regarding the desirability of any social policy is achievable perhaps only on the Supreme Court, and even there only for a relatively transitory period. In the world where policies are implemented, their subjective meaning inevitably varies from community to community, school to school, and even family to family.Recognizing that perspectives differ, it may still be socially useful 40 years after Brown to discuss some of the impacts this case has had on American public education and speculate on whether its legacy is likely to wither or endure into the 21st century. This epilogue seeks to accomplish those two purposes.THE FIRST 40 YEARS: SOME INCONTROVERTIBLE OUTCOMESBefore assessing the future of Brown, it is important to examine some of the fundamental, but often ignored contributions it has made in its first 40 years. One outcome of Brown is that, while it has not eradicated racial segregation from public schools in the United States, it has ended the policy of publicly enforced or sanctioned segregation. This change has caused a dramatic reduction in the proportion of African American students attending all-Black schools. It has also increased the proportion of Blacks in majority-White schools in the 17 southern and border states where de jure segregation existed at the time the case was presented to the High Court (Orfield, 1993). Figure I illustrates these points.(Figure I omitted)More than one million African American students in those 17 states entered majority-White schools for the first time between 1968 and 1972 (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1975). During this single four-year period, 498 school districts implemented court orders calling for complete desegregation, and 496 other districts had or were in the process of negotiating plans with the federal government (Nixon, 1970). An additional 200 mostly small- to middle-sized school districts across the country also voluntarily adopted plans between 1965 and 1975 to end pupil isolation and redress educational inequalities (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1976).Recent analyses of some 1,116 school districts (enrolling 56% of all African American children nationwide) revealed that 960 of them report significantly reduced levels of segregation since 1976 (Taeuber, 1990). Of these, two out of three remained virtually as desegregated a decade later. Only 3% reported total resegregation by the mid-1980s--that is, their level of segregation some 30 years after Brown approximated that found prior to desegregation. The data, of course, do not diminish the reality that in a significant number of non-southern urban systems with large proportions of African American students, the equal distribution of Black students produces an illusory sense of progress. In actuality, Black and White students have almost no possibility for daily interracial contact in these central-city districts. Clearly, it is important not to judge a policy and its efficacy solely on the basis of its effectiveness in a numerically small, if strategically important, group of communities where the problems of pupil segregation are most intractable.Another contribution of the Court's ruling in Brown is the breadth of its vision. …

Vocabulary Lists: The Ambsace of Word Study

Vocabulary Lists: The Ambsace of Word Study

Effect of Segregated and Integrated Educational Settings upon Selected Dialectal Features

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of a segregated educational setting versus an integrated educational setting upon selected dialectal characteristics of 60 black children in elementary school. Half of the children were selected from an all-black school and half from an integrated school. The subjects repeated 13 sentences from the Carrow Elicited Language Inventory. Instances of three commonly identified dialectal variations (zero copula, omission of /s/ and /z/ inflections, and substitution of /d/ for voiced “th”) were recorded and statistically treated through the use of an analysis of variance. Analysis indicated that in neither group of subjects was there a statistically significant decline in the presence of zero copula. However, regarding the omission of /s/ and /z/ inflections, only in the language of subjects from the integrated school was there a decrease in dialectal responses. Finally, with regard to the substitution of /d/ for voiced “th,” there was a statistically significant decline in dialectal responses for both groups of subjects. The results are discussed as they pertain to trends and important research needs in the area of social dialects, particularly black English.

A meta analysis of the effects of desegregation on academic achievement

Over the last 25 years, this nation has spent tremendous sums of money to provide equal educational opportunity to people of all races. This money has been spent on court cases, desegregation plans, busing schemes and research in the area of equal opportunity, but we still do not have definitive answers about the results of these efforts and expenditures. This research is an effort to provide more definitive guidelines on the impact of efforts in the area of desegregation on academic achievement. Many of the court decisions which have led to federal laws requiring integration were based on the assumption that segregated schools were not equal. The underlying assumption was that black children would not be provided the opportunity to develop to their full potential, since the facilities, staff, materials, books and equipment were inferior to those provided in all-white schools. It was further assumed that if blacks were allowed access to similar facilities they would experience intellectual growth which would be superior to that which they could achieve in all-black schools (Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954; Boiling vs. Sharpe, 1954). However, the research relating academic achievement to integration has been contradictory. This is evident in a 1971 address to the American Educational Research Association by Walter Mondale on the subject of school integration.

Phenomenological influences in minority attitudes toward school desegregation

Marion Gross Sobol is Associate Professor of Management Science and Computers, Edwin L. Cox School of Business, and William W. Beck is Assistant Professor of Education, Division of Educational Studies, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. (Professor Beck is n o w at the University of Arizona at Tucson.) Psychologists and social science researchers who study school integrative processes often deal with phenomenology, the view that reality lies not in an event but in an individual's perception of the event; i.e., people behave as they do in consequence of how things appear to them (Combs and Snygg, 1959). In a recent study of factors influencing attitudes of black parents toward their children's schools, we found that although on the whole parents seemed relatively satisfied with all aspects of their schools, parents who said their children were attending mixed schools were far more satisfied than parents who said their children were in all-black schools (Sobol and Beck, 1978). Using a phenomenological approach, we decided to investigate whether these black attitudes reflected perception (of reality) or reality. This article will briefly explore phenomenology. Part II will report the methodology of the study that was conducted within a segregated pocket located within the confines of a large urban desegregated school system. Rather than attempting to integrate all individual schools, quite a few school systems today have elected to maintain segregated and integrated subdistricts within their school district (Beck et at., 1977; Levine and Havighurst, 1977). Because children in such segregated areas can attend magnet or private schools, it is possible for some children in these areas to be in mixed schools. Study of the feelings of parents whose children attend these mixed schools gives important insight into the nature of black perceptions of integration. Part II will discuss the background of the study, sampling, questionnaires, and other aspects of the survey methodology. Part III of the study will show the differences in opinions about schools of black parents in this segregated area who say their children are in mixed versus those who say their children attend all-black schools. The next section will trace the schools that the students actually attend and determine whether reality or perception (of reality) is more important in the determi.