Editorial: The ‘most vexing issues’

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case that state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students were unconstitutional. A new report released last week on the 62nd anniversary of that historic decision, however, maintains segregation and economic isolation continue to dog our public classrooms.

It’s important to note the distinction between state-imposed segregation and the demographic conditions highlighted in the report, published by the Government Accountability Office. We’ve come a long way from the unfortunate days when students in some parts of the country were forced to attend certain schools based on race.

But the GAO report highlights some important points.

“While much has changed in public education in the decades following this landmark decision and subsequent legislative action, research has shown that some of the most vexing issues affecting children and their access to educational excellence and opportunity today are inextricably linked to race and poverty,” the report said.

According to the office’s findings, the number of black and Latino students attending poor K-12 public schools increased by 11 percent between 2001 and 2014. The schools highlighted in the report were found to be the most poverty-stricken, segregated schools in the nation, with 75 percent to 100 percent of students eligible for price-reduced lunch — a measure commonly used to indicate poverty.

These poorer schools tended to provide fewer math courses — as well as fewer biology, chemistry and physics courses — than their more affluent counterparts. They also offered fewer STEM courses and advanced placement, college-prep courses.

Poorer schools also have higher rates of students unable to pass the ninth grade, as well as a greater number of students who had received suspensions or expulsions.

Clearly, there are pathologies at work in many of these areas that offer unique challenges to communities and go beyond education policy. But to simply throw more money at the status quo is a recipe for continued disaster.

To expand educational opportunities and promote achievement at these low-income schools will require abandoning top-down bureaucracies to allow for increased autonomy at individual campuses. It will necessitate the fostering of charter or magnet schools that offer unique and specialized curricula. It will involve high expectations and rigorous instruction in reading, writing and math at a young age. And it will entail providing parents with increased options to escape failing schools.

Anything less is to condemn another generation of low-income children to the treadmill of poverty.