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May 28, 2004

More research showing re-segregation of schools

In 2003, the Harvard Civil Rights Project released a study entitled: "A Multiracial Society with Segregated Schools: Are We Losing the Dream?" The report showed that public school desegregation has receded and that African-American students are experiencing the most rapid resegregation in the South, having lost all progress recorded since the 1960's.

Yesterday, a new study from Making a Difference in Communities (MDC) documented the same findings, and added a new twist. Not only are the South's schools resegregating rapidly, but so the inequities between schools. MDC's study, "State of the South 2004: Fifty Years after Brown vs. Board of Education," documents the growing structural changes in our economy, increasing racial and ethnic diversity, and a growing gap between the haves and have-nots. These trends put increased pressures on the region to prepare young people for lifelong learning, work, and civic participation, all things that MDC claims Southern schools are not doing effectively.

But is the problem of increasingly segregated schools strictly a Southern problem? Not according to the Harvard Civil Rights Project, which last month released a new report on racial segregation in the Boston Public Schools. For decades, some Southern voices have pointed out that Northerners may be a bit quicker to point to segregation problems in the faraway South than to recognize their own local challenges. You can read "Racial Segregation and Educational Outcomes in Metropolitan Boston" here.

Posted May 28, 2004 12:00 AM