The brief first presents new facts on the extraordinary segregation of Black and Latino students in the state's public schools. Second, it shows that those groups are doubly segregated by race and poverty at the most educationally unsuccessful schools. These children are, on average, from families with far lower income and wealth and with parents…

Many students are enrolled in segregated school systems with unequal access to resources. In this report, we present a measure that can help policymakers identify the schools in their system that are contributing the most to segregation. How our measure differs from traditional metrics: Much research on segregation relies on an absolute measure of…

Prior research suggests that parents of Hispanics, English learners, and students living in poverty exercise school choice less frequently than other parents, which may be a factor in the resegregation of public schools. This quasi-experimental, causal-comparative design tests whether ethnicity, language dominance, or socioeconomic status of the…

Persistent school segregation may allow advantaged groups to hoard educational opportunities and consign minority students to lower-quality educational experiences. Although minority students are concentrated in low-achieving schools, relatively little previous research directly links segregation to measures of school quality based on student…

This paper provides a brief overview of key trends in enrollment, demographics, and segregation in California's schools in recent decades. Total public school enrollment has been relatively stable, and charter schools account for an increasing share of public enrollment. The Hispanic share of public enrollment has increased dramatically, and the…

This report is the result of a year-long exploration of the effects of charter schools and the issues that surround them. Each of its eleven issues-based stories tells what the Network for Public Education (NPE) has learned not only from research, but also from talking with parents, community members, teachers, and school leaders around the nation…

The bulk of research on the implementation of school choice policies has focused on how choice has been implemented in urban school systems. As of 2007, however, suburban students comprised more than one fourth (29%) of all students engaging in some form of public school choice in the United States. This article examines the implementation of…

This article brings to light discourses that constituted the education of Asian-American children in California in the second half of the nineteenth century. Guided by Foucaultian ideas and critical race theory, I analyze California public school laws, speeches of a governor-elect and a superintendent, and a report of the board of supervisors,…

In 1931, the Southern California community of Lemon Grove served as the unlikely stage for a dramatic and significant civil rights court case. A group of Mexican and Mexican-American parents and their children won a major victory in the battle against school segregation and the notion of separate but equal facilities. The case, now commonly…

Most Americans are keenly aware of the African American civil rights movement. However, few know about the comparable struggle of Mexican Americans to enjoin the practice of segregated public schools in the Southwest. This article analyzes "Mendez v. Westminster School District," a 1946 federal court case that ruled that separate but…

For most children, the racial composition of their neighborhood determines the racial composition of their school. Segregated housing patterns translate into a highly segregated educational system, which can then result in disparities in educational opportunities and an institutionalized mechanism for the reproduction of racial inequality. To…

This report is about the changing patterns of segregation in American public schools through the 2003-2004 school year. It begins by examining the transformation of racial composition in the nation's schools, the dynamic patterns of segregation and desegregation of all racial groups in regions, states, and districts by using data from 1968 until…

In October 1971, as in four previous years, school districts provided the California State Department of Education with a count of pupils in each school by racial and ethnic group categories. The survey found that 29 percent of the 4.5 million pupils in California public schools were members of racial and ethnic minority groups. Mexican Americans…

This study focuses on the treatment of non white minority groups by those responsible for public education in California between 1849 and 1970. Discrimination against blacks, American Indians, children of Mexican migrant workers, and Asian Americans are discussed in terms of government legislation, school board policies and social attitudes. Such…

This anthology attempts to put the great school bus controversy of the 1970's in perspective by providing a forum in which a series of widely differing views, backed by hard data, can be compared. The first section, "Background and Legal History," places the controversy in a perspective that predates the 1970's. One article focuses on…