Title: Impact of Classroom Segregation on Student Education | American University
Headings: Classroom Segregation: History and Current Impact on Student Education
Classroom Segregation: History and Current Impact on Student Education
A Brief History of Classroom Segregation
Resistance to Integration
Busing
Benefits of Desegregation
Integrated Schools and Achievement
Resegregation in Today’s Classroom
Effects of Resegregation
Strategies to Address Segregation
Transform Education Through Leadership
Recommended Readings

Content: As educational leaders search for ways to close achievement gaps and innovate solutions to manage inequitable school funding, they must also confront an ever-growing issue: the resegregation of US schools. Unfortunately, as in the past, the conditions of many schools today continue to separate the haves from the have-nots and further root marginalized groups in positions of disadvantage. Leaders in education continue to seek ways to ensure that students across all race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background, have equitable access to quality education. This requires addressing the role classroom segregation plays in exacerbating disparities and developing teaching approaches that offset the negative impact of segregation in schools. A Brief History of Classroom Segregation
As early as the 1930s, members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) were looking for strategies to desegregate schools through lawsuits targeting the legal doctrine of “separate but equal.” However, not until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 did the US Supreme Court unanimously outlaw state-sanctioned school segregation, ruling it unconstitutional. From their inception, schools serving students of color received significantly less funding than schools serving white students and faced overcrowding, inadequate supplies, and insufficiently paid teachers. Such disparities resulted in gaps in the educational opportunities available to Black and white communities. In 1950, only 1 in 10 Black adults graduated from high school compared to 4 in 10 white adults.