User:Tamaz.young/School segregation in the United States

Key Elements of Proposal

Planned Work

1. The article provides a great basic understanding of school segregation in the United States supported with many facts, which include laws, court rulings, and scholarly studies. However, I believe I can develop more depth of that understanding within the article by adding more content about legal segregation in today’s society and the effect of school segregation in race relations external to academia. As a High-importance subject for many WikiProjects involving education, civil rights and United States History, this article is crucially relevant to understanding the history of race relations in this country where racism and discrimination are still huge barriers in the wake and rise of movements that demand racial equality.
2. In order to raise the rating of “School segregation in the United States”, a higher presence of pictures in the latter half is needed, and the organization can be changed slightly to present a better flow of material. Additionally, many minor edits can be made regarding grammar to present a more encyclopedic prose and increase the quality of the writing style while also adding more external links, citations, and references.
3. I will be adding more information about segregation that exists today within desegregated institutions, specifically how standardized testing and AP classes leads to less exposure to minorities from whites. Also, I will be providing more context on the concept of white flight and private school education.
4. I want to add a subtopic in the topic of Sources of contemporary segregation to provide theoretical concepts that relate to school segregation. Specifically, I would like to draw the parallel between Derrick Bell’s critical race theory and combatting segregation in schools.

Annotated Bibliography

Raffel, Jeffrey A. 1998. Historical Dictionary of School Segregation and Desegregation : the American Experience / Jeffrey A. Raffel, 176-177, 231-234. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.

This is a dictionary which is relevant for the lead section of the article to establish a definition of the topic.

Reardon, Sean F, and Ann Owens. 2014. “60 Years After ‘Brown’: Trends and Consequences of School Segregation.” Annual Review of Sociology 40: 199–218. [1]

This journal entry analyzes evidence regarding trends and consequences of both racial and economic school segregation since Brown v. Board of Education. This is relevant to the topic of Historical segregation.

Little, Becky. 2020. “What Is ‘Redlining’?: How a New Deal Housing Program Enforced Segregation.” A&E Television Networks, October 20, 2020. [2]

This is a news article that details the relationship between the Federal Housing Act and and segregation. This is relevant to the topic of Historical segregation.

Card, David, and Jesse Rothstein. 2007. “Racial Segregation and the Black–white Test Score Gap.” Journal of Public Economics 91, no. 11: 2177–2178.  [3]

This is a scholarly journal that studies the relationship between school segregation and the academic achievement gap. . This is relevant to the topic of More recent segregation.

Rosiek, Jerry. 2019. “School Segregation: A Realist’s View.” Phi Delta Kappan 100, no. 5 : 8–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721719827536

This is a journal entry that focuses on segregation and racism today. This is relevant to expanding the topic of More recent segregation.

Tatum, Beverly Daniel. 1997. “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in THE Cafeteria?” and Other Conversations about the Development of Racial Identity. New York, NY: Basic Books.

This is a book that contributes information on how desegregated places can still function as segregated in modern times. This is relevant to expanding the topic of More recent segregation.

Böhlmark, Anders, Helena Holmlund, and Mikael Lindahl. 2016. “Parental Choice, Neighbourhood Segregation or Cream Skimming? An Analysis of School Segregation after a Generalized Choice Reform.” Journal of Population Economics 29, no. 4: 1155–1190. [4] This paper studies the evolution of school segregation in Sweden in the aftermath of the 1992 universal voucher reform, which spurred the establishment of new independent schools and introduced parental choice. This is relevant to my topic because the information regarding school choice and new schools is directly related to what happens in United States.

Coates, Ta-Nahesi. 2014. “The Case for Reparations.” The Atlantic, June. This is a magazine articles that focuses on the reparations for blacks in the United States. This is relevant to the subtopic of school choice and its financial limits.

Levesque, Roger J.R. 2017. The Science and Law of School Segregation and Diversity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Oxford Scholarship Online. [5]

This book shows how the legal system’s effectiveness in addressing school segregation has reversed after the civil rights era.

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. 2015. Between the World and Me. New York, NY: Spiegel & Grau. This is a book about navigating through life as a black individual despite such pervasive and constant racism. This is relevant to address how desegregation avoided racism, the real root of the problem.

Noah, Trevor. 2016. Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. New York: Spiegel & Grau, Chs. 4 & 5. pp.51-76.

This book is an autobiographical comedy book about Trevor Noah. His story of segregation shows how the racial academic achievement gap begins and persists.

Billings, Stephen B, David J Deming, and Jonah Rockoff. 2014. “SCHOOL SEGREGATION, EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT, AND CRIME: EVIDENCE FROM THE END OF BUSING IN CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 129, no. 1: 435–476. [6]

This study analyzes how the end of race-based busing widened racial inequality, despite efforts by the district to mitigate the effect of segregation through compensatory resource allocation. This is relevant to the topic of Implications of segregation because these outcomes show desegregation failed to accomplish solving racial issues.

Goldsmith, Pat Rubio. 2011. “Coleman Revisited: School Segregation, Peers, and Frog Ponds.” American Educational Research Journal 48, no. 3: 508–535. [7]

This journal demonstrates how students from minority-concentrated schools attain less education in the long run than students from White-concentrated schools regardless of if the student is of the minority or white. This is relevant to economics not being the most important factor in determining levels of school segregation.

Article Draft

More recent segregation

Trends

From 1968 to 1980, segregation between blacks and whites in schools declined. School integration peaked in the 1980s and then gradually declined over the course of the 1990s, as income differences increased. In the 1990s and early 2000s, minority students attended schools with a declining proportion of white students, so that the rate of segregation as measured as isolation resembled that of the 1960s. There is some disagreement about what to make of trends since the 1980s; while some researchers have presented trends as evidence of "resegregation," others argue that changing demographics in school districts, including class and income, are responsible for most of the changes in the racial composition of schools. A 2013 study by Jeremy Fiel found that, "for the most part, compositional changes are to blame for the declining presence of whites in minorities' schools," and that racial balance increased from 1993 to 2010. The study found that minority students became more isolated and less exposed to whites, but that all students became more evenly distributed across schools. Another 2013 study found that segregation measured as exposure increased over the previous 25 years due to changing demographics. The study did not, however, find an increase in racial balance; rather, racial unevenness remained stable over that time period. Researcher Kori Stroub found that the "racial/ethnic resegregation of public schools observed over the 1990s has given way to a period of modest reintegration," but that segregation between school districts has increased even though within-district segregation is low. Fiel believes that increasing interdistrict segregation will exacerbate racial isolation.

Causes

One reasoning for the resegregation of blacks lies in the fact that public schools were mandated by law to institute effective plans to combat segregation for only five years starting in 1968. After the peak of desegregation in 1980, the pressure conservatives under Richard Nixon's presidency were instrumental in the ruling of Freeman v. Pitts which allowed for the preservation of school segregation. Today, the increase in inter-district segregation is present because of the ruling of Milliken v. Bradley that banned desegregation across district lines, which allowed for the diverse districts to simply contained a few majority minority schools while most schools remained predominantly white.

Another aspect that supports the reversion back to segregated schools is the concept of white flight which occurs when white families utilize the privilege of school choice to move their children into schools with lower minority populations. Factors such as zoning of schools, housing policies, and school choice are the driving factors in the segregation today which shifts to incorporate not only grouping by race, but also by economic class. A wealthier family becomes more likely to relocate and invest in the educational resources of that school zone because it is more affordable. An extension of this choice becomes classroom specific in desegregated schools by way of implementations of courses at the levels of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and Honors programs which tend to have a higher white majority. Card and Rothstein provide statistical data that highlights the inverse relationship between standardized test scores and exposure to minority students. In this way, given an integrated school, white students are more likely to enroll in more advanced level courses when this choice serves as a way to become less exposed to minority students than when in an all-white environment. Due to these factors, Rosiek concludes that school choice only increases segregation or has no effect at all.

References