Segregation in Public Schools
Mishonda Atkinson
Winston Salem State University
EDU 2334
April 28, 2015

Abstract
After several laws have been passed and civil rights time being over, you would think that segregation in public schools wouldn’t still be going on. Unfortunately, there is still segregation going on in schools. Not only based on race but based on the student’s socioeconomic status. In this paper I will tell you what segregation is, how it has evolved in the past 5 years, and why segregation is important in North Carolina public schools.

Segregation in Public Schools According to Webster’s dictionary, the definition of segregation is the practice or policy of keeping people of different races, religions, etc., separate from each other. Gary Orfield(2009) wrote an article stating that schools in the United States are more segregated today than they were in more than four decades. Schools in the US are 44 percent non-white and minorities (mainly African Americans) are rapidly emerging as the majority of public school students. In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that the South’s standard of “separate but equal” was “inherently unequal,” and did “irreversible” harm to black students. Now the most reason for segregation in public schools isn’t race, its poverty. Most of the nation’s dropouts occur in non-white public schools, which leads to African Americans unemployed. Schools that are in low income communities don’t get the same funding as the other schools. It’s reported that schools in low income communities tend to have weaker staffs, fewer high achieving peers, health and nutrition problems, residential instability, single-parent households, high exposure to crime and gangs, and many other conditions that would affect a student’s performance level in school. Not only is racial segregation in public schools complicated for the students but it’s also complicated for concerned citizens, parents, and policymakers. In states like Texas and California segregation is spreading in the suburbia areas too. This is mainly due to the social effect of neglect to civil rights policies that stressed equal education. In California, the United States most multiracial state, half of African Americans and Asians attend segregated schools. Being that most of the suburb areas had few minority students, they didn’t really desegregate their schools during the civil rights. Even though large amount of minority families began to move into the suburbs, they still had no desire to desegregate their schools, appropriately train teachers, or hire non-white teachers to help deal with the new minority students. Small towns and rural areas are facing severe segregation as well. During the civil rights times, these areas were seen as the hearts of intense racism. Over fifty years ago, George Wallace defied the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision prohibiting separate public schools for African American students. Later Wallace recanted what he said by saying, “I was wrong. Those days are over and they ought to be over.” Racial isolation of African American children in separate schools located in separate neighborhoods has become a permanent feature in our nation. As I stated before, African American students are more isolated than they were 40 years ago. Rothstein(2013) states that39 percent of African American children are from families with income below the poverty line and 28 percent of African American children live in high poverty neighborhoods. Being that we are in the year of 2015, do you think segregation still matters? Yes, it still matters in today’s society. More than 70 percent of all African American students in the United States attend predominantly minority schools. An even higher percentage is was over 30 years ago. I ask myself, “Why does the socioeconomic status of a student determine their schooling?” After doing some research, I saw that lower income areas don’t have the same products of learning as the higher income areas. Things such as technology, books, and even teachers. An article written by Erwin Chemerinsky(2005) says that schools in the South and throughout the country are resegregating. The reason for this they say is mainly the Supreme Court. In several court cases the Supreme Court ensure separate and unequal schools. They refused to find school funds for African American students which caused low achievement levels. The institution that provided impetus for desegregation and offered so much hope, the courts, is responsible for this failure. North Carolina is in the south so therefore segregation in public schools is important to our state. As many other states, segregation is still apart of many schools. One particular case took place in Greenville, NC back in 2011. In Everett v. Pitt County Board of Education, parents have asked Judge Malcolm Howard to reject a school assignment plan which would leave several district schools racially and academically imbalanced. In 2006, the Greenville Parents Association filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, saying that the district’s assignment plan discriminated against white students because it used race to balance some of its elementary school population. After that particular case, more than 200 school districts came out from under court supervision, including Charlotte. According to the Civil Rights Project, an average black student in 1991 attended to a school that was evenly split, racially. Two decades later, a black student attends a school with 76 percent minority student body. North Carolina is becoming increasingly multiracial. But efforts to balance student bodies to reflect that population have been subsided or met with little success. A study from Duke University finds that poor schools are getting poorer, while the rich get richer. North Carolina schools are becoming more imbalanced by economics than race. This is a huge problem because schools with high percentages of low income students find it hard to hire and retain good teachers. Good teachers gravitate toward affluent schools, this is happening across the state. The state’s two largest school districts are Wake County and Charlotte-Mecklenberg. Charlotte-Mecklenberg schools have become economically segregated at nearly four times higher than Wake County since 1994.

References
Chemerinksy, E. (2005). The Segregation and Resegregation of American Public Education: The Court's Role.
Huntsberry, W. (2013). Economic Segregation Increases in N.C. Schools. Lila Downs, 5(2).
McCloskey, S. (2013). Fifty Years Later, Segregation Battles Still in the Courts. NC Policy Watch, (16).
Orfield, G. (2010). Revivng the Goal of an Inegrated Society: A 21st Cenury Challenge. The Civil Rights Project.
Rothstein, R. (2013). For Public Schools, Segregation Then, Segregation Since. Economic Policy.
Rumberger, R., & Palardy, G. (2005). Does Segregation Still Matter? Teachers College Record, 107(9), 1999-2045.
Wihbey, J. (2014). School Resegreation, Race and America's Future: Recent Research. A Harvard Shorenstein Center Project.