On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared that separate educational facilities are “inherently unequal” and, as such, violate the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees all citizens “equal protection under the law.”
The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education was a vitally important one. The landmark case filed by Linda Brown and her father, The Rev. Oliver Brown, not only opened the door for black children in the United States to attend all-white schools in their neighborhoods, but it also gave momentum to the fight toward desegregating the entire country.
But an education expert at Washington University in St. Louis argues that as we approach the 50th anniversary of the decision, we still have much work ahead of us to achieve a high-quality education for all students.
“I think the most significant influence of Brown and related litigation was not in the area of education,” says William F. Tate, Ph.D., chair and professor in the Department of Education in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. “Brown was a tangible legal remedy to achieve desegregation in public schooling, and equally important, a powerful symbol of coming social change.
“However,” Tate continues, “today’s education system is still segregated and in need of major improvements. Many cities are as segregated now as they were 50 years ago. Brown was obviously extremely important in the litigation strategy to dismantle segregation in the United States. But we still have a long way to go to ensure quality learning experiences for many students.”
With the passage of Brown, many African-Americans equated “good” education with their children attending well-equipped, well-financed schools with white children, says Tate, who is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters on urban school reform.
They thought that due to shared facilities and resources, black students would be treated the same as the white students. However, African-Americans quickly realized that the educational goals they had for their children were not being met just because they experienced schooling in the same building as white students, says Tate, who is also a professor of American Culture Studies in Arts & Sciences.
Brown’s shortcoming
“The shortcoming of Brown,” Tate points out, “is that the litigation resulted in the implementation of an essentially mathematical solution to a sociocultural problem. Many communities interpreted the Supreme Court’s decision by constructing complex models that called for physically manipulating where students attended school. The ability to transform a mathematical interpretation of equality into a social reality of desegregation or quality education still has not been realized.”
During the initial desegregation efforts in many schools, white students and staff treated black students harshly and physical danger was very real. Over time, Tate says, African-American students have been organized into separate academic tracks and scheduling patterns.
“Thus, today, it is not shocking to find schools composed of rather diverse ethnic and racial student bodies in which students from various demographic groups have little or no contact with each other. Classes, lunchrooms and clubs are all segregated by race,” says Tate, who has received an Outstanding Scholar Award from the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Special Interest Group: Research Focus on Black Education and an Early Career Award from AERA’s Committee on the Role and Status of Minorities in Education.
Tate claims that achievement patterns mirror segregation patterns within schools. “There is significant research that suggests teachers’ expectations influence students’ opportunity to learn,” he says. “This in turn can result in differential achievement patterns between white and black students.
“Teacher expectations,” says Tate, “combined with limited opportunities to engage cognitively demanding content are part of the formula explaining low student achievement among African-American students. This social context found in many desegregated schools represents a major challenge to quality education for every child.”
What Rev. Brown really wanted, Tate says, was access to quality schooling for his daughters. “One of the things we still have not gotten a handle on, and don’t seem to have the will to do, is to actually provide a quality education for every child,” says Tate.
What is the solution? “Schools need to be staffed by well-prepared teachers and high standards for the curriculum must be supported by adequate fiscal policy.”
Tate says that in some so-called desegregated high schools, students are tracked in both curriculum and extracurricular classes and activities. The chess club, mathematics team and science club are often mainly white activities while basketball and football tend to be the province of the African-American students.
“I have a problem with this arrangement,” Tate adds. “My deep concern is that African American, Hispanic and many poor students are not provided the kind of education that will prepare them to pursue matters of intellect. Their education does not prepare them to make real choices to participate more widely. Thus, we design schooling to continue the cycle of segregation across a spectrum of social activities both within school and beyond.”