Six decades after the formal desegregation of U.S. schools, segregation along lines of race and class continues to plague nation-wide education, according to a report released Thursday by the UCLA’s Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles.
Entitled Brown at 60: Great Progress, a Long Retreat and an Uncertain Future, the study finds that Black and Latino students are more likely to be enrolled in poor schools than their White and Asian counterparts—who are more likely to be found in middle-class schools.
Segregation is the worst in the “central cities of the largest metropolitan areas,” according to a report summary.
New York, Illinois, and California share the dubious title of worst in the nation for segregating Black youth. California is also number one for isolating Latino students.
“The growth of segregation has been most dramatic for Latino students, particularly in the West, where there was substantial integration in the l960s, and segregation has soared,” states the report. In suburban areas, Latino students are more segregated than their Black counterparts.
The study points to some areas of progress: “Contrary to many claims, the South has not gone back to the level of segregation before Brown. It has lost all of the additional progress made after l967 but is still the least segregated region for Black students.”
Yet Gary Orfield, co-author of the study and co-director of the Civil Rights Project,
declared in a statement released Thursday, “It is time to stop celebrating a version of history that ignores our last quarter century of retreat and begin to make new history by finding ways to apply the vision of Brown in a transformed, multiracial society in another century,”
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