ERIC EJ792630: Coming Together: How a Half Century of Segregation and Desegregation Continues to Shape New England's Future

2005·0.2 MB·English

by  ERIC

Coming Together
How a Half Century of Segregation and Desegregation
Continues to Shape New England’s Future
BLENDA J. WILSON
in U.S. District Court, but the court ruled against the
If you were an African-American student in a large
school board. Nevertheless, decades of political
Northern city 50 years ago, your public school,
activism in opposition to the law took extreme forms,
very likely, would have been segregated—even including violent protest and boycotts that will forever
in New England. Only one year earlier, in Brown stain Boston’s reputation on matters of race.
In 1972, a group of African-American parents in
v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the U.S.
Boston filed a class action suit charging that the city’s
Supreme Court had ruled that legally sanctioned
public schools were intentionally segregated. Two
school segregation violated the 14th Amendment
years later, U.S. District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity
to the Constitution. ordered the School Committee to produce and imple-
Following the Supreme Court decision, ment a racially balanced student assignment plan as a
Massachusetts took legislative action, recognizing that temporary remedy and to create a permanent plan.
segregation in housing had restricted certain racial and Over the next 15 years of active court involvement, the
ethnic groups, including African-Americans and judge issued a series of remedial orders on a range of
Latinos, to neighborhoods whose schools were inferior issues, including assigning students to schools, busing
to schools in predominately white communities. In students to schools beyond walking distance, closing
1965, Massachusetts Gov. John A. Volpe proposed and and opening facilities and recruiting and assigning
the state Legislature approved the Racial Imbalance faculty and staff.
Act, which prohibited racial imbalance and discour- Boston was not alone in refusing to comply with
aged schools from having enrollments that are more the law. The Springfield schools were not fully desegre-
than 50 percent minority. The state Board of Education gated until after the Massachusetts Board of Higher
required written desegregation plans from school com- Education filed four separate lawsuits against that
mittees in segregated cities, including Boston, city’s School Committee.
Springfield and New Bedford. One of the striking successes of Massachusetts
Sadly, the Racial Imbalance Law ran into staunch legislative action was the creation of the Metropolitan
resistance in many parts of the state. The Boston Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO Inc.).
School Committee immediately challenged the law This state-funded, voluntary education desegregation
1976
Rhode Island state Sen. John C. Revens Jr., assumes
Congress approves demonstration pro- NEBHE chairmanship.
gram to promote delivery of health, education and
public service information via telecommunications. erty. 1978
h
Do In response to budgetary concerns, a 25
U.S. college enrollment stands at 11,012,137. hm percent tuition surcharge on RSP students is initiated.
a
S
1977 dit: Caucus of New England State Legislatures is established.
e
First wave of New England colleges and Cr
John C. Hoy, former vice chancellor for university
universities begin divesting endowment funds from Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Thomas P.
and student affairs at the University of California,
companies that do business in South Africa. Within a O’Neill Jr. becomes speaker of the U.S. House of
Irvine, and Wesleyan University admissions dean,
decade, more than 30 New England institutions Representatives, a position he would hold for 10 years.
becomes NEBHE president and CEO—a post he
would have divested more than $200 million. Most
would reverse the policy with the dismantling of Biogen is founded in Massachusetts. By 1990, the state would hold for 23 years until his retirement. {
apartheid in 1991. would host more than 100 biotechnology companies. Price of postage stamp rises to 15 cents.
CONNECTION FALL 2005 29
program helped eliminate racial imbalance by enabling number of African-American and Latino students in
children from Boston, and later from Springfield, to desegregated educational settings within four years.
attend participating suburban public schools. METCO Legal challenges to the intent of the law have also
has been a key player in the regional battle for equal undermined educational advances on behalf of minori-
educational opportunity. Today, more than 3,000 ty students. In 1996, for example, two lawsuits were
METCO students attend schools in one of 38 filed by Michael C. McLaughlin, a white Boston attor-
participating districts, including Braintree, Brookline, ney whose daughter had been denied admission to the
Cohasset, Framingham, Hampden, Lexington, prestigious Boston Latin School. At the time, Boston’s
Longmeadow, Newton and Reading. Since the organi- “exam schools” reserved 35 percent of the student
zation was established in 1965, nearly nine out of 10 slots for African-American and Latino students.
METCO graduates have gone on to college. McLaughlin’s claim was that his daughter’s grades and
During the era of desegregation, the number of entrance exam scores were higher than those of many
minority students who graduated from high school minority candidates who were granted admission. The
increased sharply and racial test score gaps narrowed. lawsuit was dismissed when the schools agreed to
Despite the evidence of METCO and other successful reserve half the seats in the district’s three exam
educational interventions that quality education can schools for students with the highest scores and to fill
enable all students to achieve at high levels, however, the remaining slots through a system that permitted
the promise of equal education in New England consideration of test scores and race. In a later case,
remains elusive. Even today, residential housing pat- the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that compromise
terns in many of New England’s low-income, multicul- unconstitutional. As a result, fewer African-American
tural cities mimic earlier patterns of segregation and and Hispanic students attend Boston Latin School and
produce inferior schools and unequal education for Boston Latin Academy today than during the years of
poor, immigrant and minority children. court-ordered school desegregation.
Because immigrant and minority children represent So how far have we come? Neither the country at
the fastest growing segment of the population in New large nor New England has succeeded in eliminating
England, redressing modern-day segregation is particu- segregation, whatever its cause. The familiar phenome-
larly challenging. A good example may be seen in non of “white flight,” where white families migrate out
Hartford, Conn., where the student population is of the region’s cities or send their children to parochial
95 percent minority. The Connecticut Supreme Court or private schools, has created “majority minority”
found the state of Connecticut in violation of a man- student populations in many urban public schools.
date to reduce racial, ethnic and economic segregation Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island now
in Hartford regional schools. To achieve diversity, rank among the U.S. states in which white exposure
Hartford plans to develop inter-district magnet schools to blacks is the lowest, and Latino segregation contin-
to bring together students from the city and from the ues to increase in every region of the country. So, if you
suburbs. Hartford’s goal is to significantly expand the are an African-American or Latino student in a large
{{
A Half Century of New England Higher Education and Economic Development, continued
1979 1980
Financing Higher Education: The Public Investment
NEBHE creates Commission on Higher High-technology executives in are published a year later.
Education and the Economy of New England, com- Massachusetts help push through Proposition 21⁄,
2
prised of bank executives, college presidents, labor a sweeping referendum capping property taxes. A NEBHE survey finds that fewer than half of New
officials, professors, publishers and business leaders. England leaders of government, higher education,
Ronald Reagan is elected president, ushering in era business and labor view higher education as “above
U.S. Department of Education is established as of administration calls for cuts in federal spending average” or “outstanding” in meeting the labor
cabinet-level agency, with Shirley M. Hufstedler as on higher education and scientific research. force needs of the region’s industries.
first secretary.
1981
Reagan administration cuts funding of New England
For the first time, women outnumber men on U.S. NEBHE publishes Business and
college campuses. Academia: Partners in New England’s Economic
Renewal,the first in a series of three books on New
Number of high school graduates begins to decline.
England higher education and the regional economy.
New England’s Vital Resource: The Labor Forceand
30 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Northern city today, or even in parts of New England, from low-income families and sponsoring college
there is still a good chance that your school is access programs such as Upward Bound, TRIO and
racially unbalanced. GEAR UP to increase the college readiness of students
Moreover, the Harvard Civil Rights Project, in a from underperforming schools. Similarly, state support
recent study titled, A Multiracial Society with of public colleges and universities was designed to
Segregated Schools: Are We Losing the Dream?,found enable all students who were capable of pursuing post-
that the progress in reducing educational disparities secondary education, regardless of income, to enroll in
that had been achieved during the era of desegregation college—opening the doors of opportunity to histori-
has been eroding in the 1990s. cally disadvantaged groups.
The good news, however, is that, despite continued The major policy advances of this new century
housing segregation and stubborn resistance to com- contain a commitment to educate all children for a
pensatory strategies, schools have made progress over competitive world. In addition to historically underrep-
the past 50 years in reducing educational inequities resented populations—African-Americans, Latinos,
based on race. According to the National Assessment Native Americans—New England is experiencing a
of Educational Progress (NAEP), performance gaps large influx of immigrants from all over the world,
between white and minority students in reading and including large numbers of school-age children from
math have closed to the narrowest point in 30 years. Brazil, Portugal, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic
NAEP assessments in 4th grade writing also show a and India. While these groups may live in relatively
narrowing in the black-white gap in average scores. homogeneous neighborhoods more as a result of
African-American and Latino students have gained at choice than discrimination, the educational challenge
an even faster rate than white students on these mea- remains the same as the struggle of the past
sures, according to a recent report of the Center for 50 years—to provide a high-quality education for all.
Education Policy. And while students of color still The rapid increase of immigrant populations in New
account for only 20 percent of enrollments on the England should give new urgency to the region’s com-
region’s college campuses, they are making progress. mitment to education reform and enhancing achieve-
Between 1993 and 2003, African-American enrollment ment of underserved groups. Adlai Stevenson once said,
increased by 31 percent, Latino enrollment by 51 per- “The most American thing about America is the free
cent and Native American enrollment by 21 percent. common school system.” We must hold those schools
Progress is slow, but encouraging. accountable not only for advancing educational equity,
Brown v. Board of Educationset in motion a half but for sustaining an inclusive democracy.
century of fits and starts toward equal educational
opportunity for citizens of color. The federal govern- Blenda J. Wilsonis president and chief operating
ment played an important role by providing grants and officer of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation in
loan guarantees to make college affordable to students Quincy, Mass.
1982
Regional Commission and New England River New England unemployment averages 7.8 percent,
Basins Commission. NEBHE’s Commission on Higher Education as recession pushes U.S. jobless rate to 40-year high
and the Economy issues A Threat to Excellence,calling of 9.7 percent.
Yale University, the city of New Haven, the state of for a variety of partnerships among New England
Connecticut and Olin Corp., establish Science Park colleges, secondary schools and businesses. Mitchell Kapor launches Lotus Development Corp.
Development Corp. in an effort to lure high-tech and
biotech firms to New Haven. New England Education Loan Marketing Corp. (Nellie 1983
Mae) is chartered as first regional secondary market NEBHE publishes Higher Education
Tuition and mandatory fees at New England’s private in the United States. Telecommunications: A New England Policy
four-year colleges average $4,874, compared with Imperative,urging that New England adopt a regional
$3,709 nationally. Tuition and mandatory fees at the Congress passes Small Business Innovation policy to coordinate educational telecommunications.
region’s public four-year colleges average $1,019, Development Act of 1982, setting aside a small por-
compared with $819 nationally. tion of federal research funds for small businesses. National Commission on Excellence in Education
publishes A Nation at Risk,warning of mediocrity {
Quinebaug Valley Community College President in public schools and leading to stepped-up school
Robert E. Miller assumes NEBHE chairmanship. reform efforts across the country.
CONNECTION FALL 2005 31