BBC Wednesday, 18 July, 2001, 16:49 GMT 17:49 UK US school segregation rises

Latino and black students now mix less with white pupils

American schools are becoming increasingly segregated, despite the nation's growing diversity, and offer vastly unequal education opportunities, a new study has found.

Research by Harvard University shows that white students are now more likely to be educated away from black and Latino pupils, who in turn go to predominantly minority schools.

"White children are growing up in a society that is going to become more than half minority, and they are almost totally isolated from these minorities," said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Harvard University Civil Rights Project that conducted the study.

The rise in segregation stems from a series of US Supreme Court decisions in the 1990s that limited moves to mix schools across city-suburban boundaries, leaving central city schools overwhelmingly poor, researchers say.

Using data from the National Center of Education Statistics, the Harvard study found that:

70% of black students now attend schools where minority enrolment is over 50% 36.6% of Latino students go to minority schools, up from 23.1% in 1980 white students on average attend schools where 80% plus are white

Growing gap

Researchers say segregation is increasing despite America's increasing racial and ethnic groups, in particular the rapid growth of 245% in the Latino student population over the past 30 years.

Civil Rights Project co-director Gary Orfield said segregation was contributing to a growing gap in quality between schools attended mainly by white pupils and those serving a large proportion of minority students.

"This is ironic, considering that evidence exists that desegregated schools both improve test scores and positively change the lives of students," he said.

Not only minority students suffer from being educated separately, according to Mr Orfield.

Attending mixed schools would prepare white students better for life in an increasingly mixed society.

"These surburban (white) kids are vastly unprepared for the future," he said.

Court rulings

In 1954, a US Supreme Court ruling saw the beginning of a programme of desegregation, with the aim that all public schools would teach pupils of all races.

Researchers say one reason for the reverse trend dates back to 1974 when the US Supreme Court banned moves to mix schools across city-suburban boundaries.

Subsequent rulings that limited moves to desegregate have also left central city schools overwhelmingly attended by minorities, they say.

The study says the southern United States, the focus of moves to desegregate schools half a century ago, is moving backwards at an accelerating rate.

Between 1988 and 1998, the number of black pupils in majority white schools decreased from 43.5% to 32.7%.

Poverty

Racially segregated schools, except those predominantly white, are almost always those with high concentrations of poverty, the study says.

The average black or Latino student attends a school with more than twice as many poor classmates as a white student.

To reverse segregation, the Harvard study includes several recommendations, including the creation of magnet schools to attract students of all races across district boundaries.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Answers

NYPost

N.Y. SCHOOLS NO. 1 - IN SEGREGATION

By CARL CAMPANILE

July 19, 2001 -- New York state's public schools are the most racially segregated in the country, with the least mingling among white and minority students of any state, a new Harvard University study shows.

"In the 1960s, the Southerners said the Northerners were hypocrites. They were right," said analysis author Gary Orfield.

"New York is the most segregated state in the nation in terms of public schools. It leads the pack in intense segregation of both black and Hispanic students."

The report found that New York state schools:

* Have the lowest percentage of black students enrolled in mostly white schools, and the lowest percentage of whites in schools with large minority enrollments.

* Have the highest percentage of Latino students clustered in non-white schools.

* Have 13 percent of Hispanic students enrolled in mostly white schools - the second worst behind Hawaii.

Orfield said New York City is a "big contributor" to the racial isolation, in large part due to its segregated neighborhoods.

But he also said the poor quality of public schools drives affluent white parents to send their kids to private and parochial schools, further exacerbating the racial imbalance.

"You don't have credible public schools in some of the middle-class neighborhoods," Orfield said.

He said segregation is a shame because research shows that minorities perform better in interracial schools.

Orfield suggests expanding magnet schools to draw in whites and requiring that desegregation be part of the criteria in approving new charter schools.

The other top segregated states just behind New York were California, Michigan, Illinois, Hawaii and Texas. States with tiny minority populations had the least segregation: Iowa, Maine, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia.

Board of Education President Ninfa Segarra said segregation is a fact of life in city neighborhoods, but was surprised that New York state ranked No. 1.

The board has 1.1 million students. Of that total, 38 percent are Hispanic, 36 percent are black, 15 percent are white, and 11 percent are Asian.

But Segarra said the old way of "moving students around like pieces on a chess board" is not the answer.

"What we need to do is improve the public-school system," she said. "We have to make sure the schools work for everybody."

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

"We have to make sure the schools work for everybody."

That's a major part of the problem! Education has never been a "one size fits all" process. Back in the "olden" days when white, middle class values were being imparted to youngsters in most (not all) public schools, those who identified with the culture did well on the standardized tests (CAT, Iowa, etc).

Today, there isn't one "standard" being pushed; instead, it's the multiculture, Education 2000, Touchy-Feely garbage. Testing the reading and writing abilities of students from this type of background is a mathematical nightmare for honest evaluators. Dishonest evaluators can make the date read however their handlers wish (nothing new, here).

Schools have never worked "for everyone," even in other countries. The sooner we face the fact that the NWO is merely using most US public schools to brainwash our children and quit trying to provide "equal" education, the closer we'll be to making some headway with this problem.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

I have a hard time concluding that this *is* a problem. Seems like natural behavior in human life, or the animal world for that matter. Didn't the do-gooders and liberal dreamers ever hear that old adage, "Birds of a feather flock together?" Maybe if they would work on the bird segregation problem for a while they'd discover something important.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Liberals and Do-Gooders work? I started to write something about being too tied to the smoothie bar to go outside of the city, but a lot of extreme liberal animal rights workers do go camping periodically. Heaven forbid that they do any actual work, though, because that's a forbidden 4-letter word.

Sorry, Gordon, I'm PO'd at the local school board and their latest demands, including a proposal for bussing, which is being called a "shared resource" program. If I had children in the public school right now, I'd be applying to private institutions.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Meemur,

After watching some school boards' behavior for a number of years, I have come to the conclusion that they operate for the primary reason of maintaining power and increasing the size of whatever they wish to control. Thus, bussing creates a larger need for equipment, workers, special studies, etc, etc. It really has nothing to do with whether or not it's good for the students. It's good for the school board!!

-- Anonymous, July 21, 2001