The concept of school district secession harkens back to the days of the segregation academies or Christian academies, private schools founded by whites after the Brown desegregation decision to avoid having their children attend school with Black children. Over the years, as The Daily Beast found, these white academies had to move beyond the whites-only rationalization for their existence, adding the rationale that they needed to combat “secular humanism” and liberalism, even as the importance of race remained. These private white schools remain, their student bodies remaining overwhelmingly white and wealthy, with few or no Black students.
Educational segregation is on the increase in America. As Frontline reported, data from the UCLA Civil Rights Project showed that in the South, the percentage of Black students in majority white schools went from zero to a high of 43.5 percent in 1988. By 2011, the number had reverted to 1968 levels at 23.2 percent. This is important because the UCLA figures demonstrate a high correlation between segregation and poverty. Over half of the children in the poorest schools are Black and Latino, translating into lower-quality teachers, supplies and facilities. “In many respects, the schools serving white and Asian students and those serving Black and Latino students represent two different worlds,” the UCLA researchers said.
“Segregation is typically segregation by both race and poverty. Black and Latino students tend to be in schools with a substantial majority of poor children, but white and Asian students are typically in middle-class schools,” the UCLA report noted. “Segregation is by far the most serious in the central cities of the largest metropolitan areas, but it is also severe in central cities of all sizes and suburbs of the largest metro areas, which are now half nonwhite. Latinos are significantly more segregated than Blacks in suburban America.”
“We recommend substantial expansion of magnet school funding, strong civil rights policies for charter schools, serious incentives for regional collaboration and teacher training for diverse and racially changing schools,” the report added.
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