Suburbs across the US are experiencing demographic shifts with consequences for suburban schools. While scholars have expressed concern about rising segregation among suburban public schools, we extend this work by examining changes in racial/ethnic school segregation across a typology of suburban municipalities in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin…

In 1969, four years after passage of the Voting Rights Act, African Americans in Greene County, Alabama, reclaimed control of local government, becoming the first community in the South to do so since Reconstruction. A half century later, however, Greene County remains an impoverished and largely segregated area with poor educational outcomes,…

This essay attempts to show how the Social Darwinist thinking of white racial superiority, and so, ultimately, white supremacy, came to be institutionalised in law in South Africa. It looks specifically at the making and institutionalisation of the School Board Act (SBA) of 1905 of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. It argues that the SBA…

How can access to public elementary schools of variable quality be justly distributed within a school district? Two reasonable criteria are: (a) that children should have equal opportunity to attend high-quality schools, and (b) school assignment policies should foster an overall increase in the number of high-quality schools. This article…

Given recent budgetary gaps in public education, many civic and educational leaders have relied upon private sources of funding for US public schools, including funds raised by parents. Yet parents' role as economic actors in public education has been largely unexplored. Drawing from a qualitative study of parent engagement, fundraising, and…

"Brown v. Board of Education" (1954) was a landmark decision that was the result of decades of efforts by grassroots activists and civil rights organizations to end legalized segregation. A less well-known effort challenged the extralegal segregation of Mexican American students in the Southwest. I combine original research and research…

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered states to eliminate racial segregation in public schools with "all deliberate speed." Nonetheless, many all-white school boards in "progressive" North Carolina delayed "de jure" segregation for decades and condoned elements of "de facto" segregation that persist today.…

Background/Context: Even though not fully realized, in legislation and theory, the requirements of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act and the No Child Left Behind Act have created pressure to address the historical inequity in educational opportunity, achievement, and outcomes, as well as disparities in achievement between…

This article analyzes the legal classification of Mexican Americans as "other white" as argued in a number of critical court cases that beginning in the 1930s up to the 1970s attempted to desegregate public schools in Texas. Since the Texas constitution declared school segregation as being only for "colored children," Mexican…

The research presented in this study focuses on the hypothesis that there are consistent patterns of school desegregation and racial attitudes in the South and urban North which can be empirically derived and mathematically described through the simultaneous use of ecological and opinion data. Findings relating to the public school desegregation…

THE FINDINGS OF A STUDY OF RACIAL ISOLATION IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE DISCUSSED. THE STUDY FOCUSED ON (1) THE EXTENT OF RACIAL SEGREGATION IN THE SCHOOLS AND THE DISPARITY BETWEEN THE EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT OF NEGRO AND WHITE SCHOOL CHILDREN, (2) FACTORS WHICH INTENSIFY AND PERPETUATE SEGREGATION, (3) THE EFFECTS OF SEGREGATED SCHOOLING ON…

The past year has witnessed considerable progress in the field of Negro education, despite adverse conditions brought about by the war. Probably the most significant event of the year was the appointment in Texas of a State supervisor of rural Negro schools, whose salary and expenses are paid entirely by the State. Short terms, poor schoolhouses,…