Sixty years have passed since the pivotal 1954 Supreme Court case of "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas" and almost fifty years have elapsed since the Higher Education Act of 1965. The Brown decision dismantled public segregated schools in many parts of the country, especially in the South, and racial access in schools…

The focus on the achievement gap has overshadowed ways in which school systems constrain student achievement through trends of racial disproportionality in areas such as school discipline, special education assignment, and juvenile justice. Using Critical Race Theory, we reframe these racial disparities as issues of institutionalized racism.…

Opportunity to learn via public education has origins in the mid-nineteenth-century as a response to Horace Mann's argument that educating girls as well as boys would build a collectively more prosperous society. Over the years, educational reform through the judicial and legislative branches of government has continued to balance opportunity to…

The Illinois High School Class of 2002 is part of the third generational wave of American students following the landmark Supreme Court decision in "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka," which outlawed segregation in public education. This longitudinal study allows the authors to examine the long-term impacts of this monumental…

In the 50 years since "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka" formally desegregated public schools, there has been enormous progress in the academic success of African Americans, particularly in high school completion, improved test scores, increased college enrollment, and attainment of advanced degrees, as well as full access to and…