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Modern Segregation in Schools

In 2018, a New Jersey lawsuit was filed stating that school district borders are drawn along municipality lines that reflect years of residential segregation (NPR, 2019).  A study done by EdbBuild found that predominantly white schools receive an average of $23 billion more in funding than districts that serve predominantly students of color. “For every student enrolled, the average nonwhite school district receives $2,226 less than a white school district,” the EdBuild report says. The report also found that more than half of the students in the US go to segregated schools, meaning more than 3 quarters of the student body are white or non-white (EdBuild,2019). Today, nearly one-fifth of public schools have nearly no students of color, while another one-fifth has nearly no white students, a statistic that has tripled over the last 25 years (USAToday, 2020).

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The image above illustrates how this disparity has consistently increased since 1988. Image received from Civil Rights Project, 2016.

These disparities are often attributed to how wealthy the area is, and how much is paid in taxes in that area (NPR, 2019). Therefore, the funding for school systems is now reliant on where people had historically been forced to live. In theory, school districts in high-poverty areas rely on the state to provide the differences in funding, but with growing wealth disparities, states have largely failed to uphold this agreement (EdBuild, 2019). Therefore, the division furthers, and those lucky enough to be wealthy are able to build fences around said wealth, while under-privileged children are left out. In many states, even high-poverty white children received more in funding than high-poverty children of color, indicating even if they do not draw a line to limit those affected by the wealth gap, they will draw the line for race (EdBuild, 2019).

At the 3 minute mark, this John Oliver clip further explains how this issue has been able to unfold, detailing that rather than “re-segregating,” schools never desegregated to begin with.

This cumulates into an issue referred to as “double segregation.” This concept describes how when students are socialized in schools in which “few students have benefited from the advantages and power that middle class families have and exercise on behalf of their children, they are poorly prepared for a society where colleges/universities and good jobs are strongly white and middle class institutions.” The informal connections in schools/neighborhoods that open doors to information, opportunities, and contacts then also remain segregated, further perpetuating racial isolation and inequality (Civil Rights Project, 2016). Alternatively, attending diverse schools has been proven to help counter stereotypes and lead students to seek integrated settings later in life, as well as increase the likelihood of enrolling in college/not dropping out (USAToday, 2020).

I imagine the concept of Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Other” feels quite apparent for those that attend highly segregated schools in which they are one of the few students of a specific racial group. I had attended a racially segregated high school in New Jersey and witnessed some of my black friends experience offensive and insensitive questions, similar to Deming in The Leavers, pertaining to their hair, skin, culture, etc.

 

Works Cited:

“23 Billion.” EdBuild, edbuild.org/content/23-billion.
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Vintage Classic, 2015.
Jongyeon, Gary, et al. “SCHOOL SEGREGATION BY RACE, POVERTY AND STATE .” Civil Rights Project, 16 May 2016,
www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/brown-at-62-school-segregation-by-race-poverty-and-state/Brown-at-62-final-corrected-2.pdf.
Ko, Lisa. The Leavers: a Novel. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2018.
Lallinger, Stefan. “America’s Segregated Schools: We Can’t Live Together until We Learn Together.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 23 June 2020, www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/06/23/why-segregation-still-plagues-americas-schools-and-how-fix-column/3234499001/.
LastWeekTonight. “School Segregation: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO).” YouTube, YouTube, 30 Oct. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8yiYCHMAlM&ab_channel=LastWeekTonight.
Lombardo, Clare. “Why White School Districts Have So Much More Money.” NPR, NPR, 26 Feb. 2019, www.npr.org/2019/02/26/696794821/why-white-school-districts-have-so-much-more-money.