In 2012, Denver Public School District superintendent Tom Boasberg wrote to his employees about the state of their schools: "Yet there's a great deal of work ahead because our gaps still aren't closing at all. They remain strikingly and distressingly similar to the national data. Our schools still aren't the equalizing force that they need to…

The publication of this report marks the 65th anniversary of "Brown v. Board of Education," the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case declaring racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. In the immediate years after the "Brown" ruling, the effort to integrate schools faced many difficult challenges and progress was…

This study uses a North Carolina administrative data set to analyze racial segregation and student achievement in Wake County during race-based and income-based school assignment plans. We find a modest increase in the level of racial segregation in Wake schools during the income-based plan, but compared with other large districts in the state,…

As the anniversary of "Brown v. Board of Education" decision arrives again without any major initiatives to mitigate spreading and deepening segregation in the nation's schools, the Civil Rights Project adds to a growing national discussion with a research brief drawn from a much broader study of school segregation to be published in…

Purpose: School administrators and policy makers live in a complex, changing policy universe in which there are many competing demands and political pressures. Rarely is there much time to think about sensitive issues of long duration that are not part of the immediate demands they face. This article is about such an issue, a question that will…

The South was the central focus of the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954. The landmark ruling held that laws mandating segregation in the school systems of the eleven states of the Old Confederacy, along with D.C. and six other states, violated the U.S. Constitution. Intense opposition met the…

Closing achievement gaps--disparities in academic achievement between minority and white students, and between low-income and higher-income students--has long been an unrealized goal of U.S. education policy. It has now been 60 years since the Supreme Court declared "separate but equal" schools unconstitutional in "Brown v. Board of…

The fight for equal educational opportunity in New York has followed a pattern similar to other diverse or racially transforming states. From the 1950s to 1980s, the issue of school desegregation was an important issue. Local civil rights pressure, the courts, and legislation attempted to desegregate large urban school systems through both…

North Carolina has a storied history of school integration efforts spanning several decades. In response to the "Brown" decision, North Carolina's strategy of delayed integration was more subtle than the overt defiance of other Southern states. Numerous North Carolina school districts were early leaders in employing strategies to…

In 1954, "Brown v. Board of Education" struck down state laws that required schools to be segregated by race, which then existed in 17 southern states. Yet in 2016, many schools across the country are still segregated along largely racial and socioeconomic lines. There are many reasons schools aren't better integrated. School district…

Maryland, as one of 17 states that had de jure segregation, has an intense history of school segregation. Following the 1954 Brown decision, school districts across the state employed various methods to desegregate their schools, including mandatory busing in Prince George's County, magnet schools in Montgomery County, and a freedom of choice plan…

This study examines the impact of racial isolation on high school student performance in North Carolina, a state in the southeast United States. Our research goal is to investigate if increased isolation negatively impacts Black students' academic performance. Employing the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) dataset, we…

Though once a leader in school integration, Massachusetts has regressed over the last two decades as its students of color have experienced intensifying school segregation. This report investigates trends in school segregation in Massachusetts by examining concentration, exposure, and evenness measures by both race and class. First, the report…

Summarizes and analyzes constitutional doctrine dealing with school desegregation and reviews whether the courts have kept school desegregation law clear and understandable. (Author/JM)

Assesses the legacy of Brown v Board of Education and suggests the role and impact of this ruling on the future of American education and society at large. It concludes with a discussion of the lessons that school officials and advocates of integration and educational equality should keep in mind in their planning for the 21st century. (GR)