May 28, 2019

65 Years Too Late: Education in the American South After Brown v. Board

By Bellwether

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65 years after the landmark Supreme Court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, over 300 school districts remain under court desegregation orders, 88 percent of which are in the South. Alabama’s constitution still contains racist language about education, and around the U.S., schools and district attendance zones mirror the housing segregation in our communities. Brown v. Board’s anniversary earlier this month reminds us that the legacy of discriminatory in education, housing, and other social policies continues to challenge access and opportunity for a significant proportion of our students.

A new Bellwether analysis released last week illuminates challenges the American South continues to face and points to opportunities to better serve its students. In our slide deck, we examine education in the American South through regional and education trends and historical context. To highlight Southern states’ role in national education reform, we also describe key initiatives and policies that began in the South and expanded to the rest of the country. (Our definition of the South includes 15 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.)
The South is home to many promising solutions to help better serve minority and low-income students. For example, in charter schools in Texas, Florida, and New Orleans, African American and Hispanic students have demonstrated better performance in comparison to district-managed schools. In higher education, 90 of the remaining 102 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are located in the South. HBCUs produce 24 percent of black STEM graduates and confer almost 35 percent of all bachelor’s degrees earned by black graduates in astronomy, biology, chemistry, math, and physics. Local investments have contributed to this progress, but national funding and philanthropy don’t always keep up with highest need areas in the South.
With 56 percent of all black students in the U.S. living in the South, as well as substantial portions of the nation’s English language learner and migrant student populations, funders, policymakers, and school leaders must acknowledge the persistence of segregation in the South and the failure to sufficiently support our students. We can’t wait another 65 years.
Read our comprehensive slide deck, “Education in the American South,” here and follow the conversation on Twitter at #EduSouth.

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