Suburban schools have traditionally remained homogenous enclaves for White middle class families. On the surface, these racially integrated spaces reflect the dream of Brown v. Board of Education--to have students of all races learning and developing together. A closer look at these racially mixed environments unveils the systemic problems…

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…

Southern California is facing a demographic transformation that will become characteristic of the nation as a whole in coming decades. In this research, we present a historical review of the region's attempt to address school inequity, recent enrollment and segregation trends, and an investigation of whether segregation still matters. Our results…

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…

Despite moderate gains in equal educational opportunities over the past 60 years, low-income students of color continue to lag behind their middle-class, White peers. This is particularly true for first-generation Latina/o students who: (a) have the highest K-12 drop-out rate than any other ethnic group in U.S. schools; (b) are underrepresented in…

The purpose of this historical case study was to add to the literature an analysis of the landmark legal case of Jose Cisneros v. CCISD. The outcome of this case established Mexican Americans as an ethnic minority and set the legal precedent that the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Topeka ruling could be extended to other minorities beyond…

America's schools are more segregated now than they were in the late 1960s. More than 50 years after "Brown v. Board of Education," educators need to radically rethink the meaning of "school choice." For decades at Wake County, buses would pick up public school students in largely minority communities along the Raleigh…

This article examines the experiences of 20 students of color who voluntarily attend a racially integrated school. The study draws from the Socio-Cultural dimension of schooling as a framework to understand how the students of color fared on a social, cultural, and environmental level within a predominantly White school. Through a questionnaire,…

This article takes a look at the Mendez v. Westminster School District, a landmark case that faded into historical obscurity. In the 1940s, Gonzalo and Felicita Mendez wanted their three children to attend the school nearest their farm, which was the 17th Street Elementary School in Westminster. But in the Westminster, Orange County, El Medina,…

In the waning months of World War II, Latino families in Orange County, California, protested efforts by local authorities to place their children in segregated schools. Their victory presaged the Supreme Court showdown in the next decade. (EV)

The main criterion for eligibility for special education services in schools has been proof of intrinsic deficit. There are two problems with this focus: First, defining and identifying high-incidence disabilities are ambiguous and subjective processes. Second, the focus on disability has become so intertwined with the historical devaluing of…

The United States is quick to celebrate the Brown v. Board of Education decision, but there is an insidious trend toward resegregation in the public schools. For the first time since 1954, school segregation is actually increasing for African American students. In several rarely discussed decisions, the Supreme Court has opened the door for the…

This report examines a decade of resegregation from the time of the Supreme Court's 1991 "Dowell" decision, which authorized a return to neighborhood schools, even if that would create segregation, through the 2001-2002 school year. It goes beyond previous reports by Harvard's Civil Rights Project to study the impact of resegregation in…

American schools, resegregating gradually for almost two decades, are now experiencing accelerating isolation and this will doubtless be intensified by the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. In June 2007, the Supreme Court handed down its first major decision on school desegregation in 12 years in the Louisville and Seattle cases. A…

Uncovering the effects of school racial composition on academic achievement is difficult, because racial mixing in the schools represents a complex mixture of government and family choices. While the goals of school integration legally inspired by Brown v. Board of Education are very broad, this paper focuses on the contribution of school racial…