Giving Compass' Take:

• Robert Abare unpacks three common myths about school integrations, highlighting the importance and absence of true integration. 

• How can funders work to advance integration? What does segregation look like in your area? 

• Read about a possible path to integration for NYC schools. 

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark Brown v. Board decision that school segregation was unconstitutional. Yet 65 years later, schools in major US cities remain more segregated than neighborhoods, and many students attend classes filled mostly with students who look like them.

At the same time, opportunity and achievement gaps exist between low-income children and children from more affluent families and communities.

Rucker C. Johnson, author of the recent book Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works, said this situation is partly the result of “amnesia” regarding school integration policies. Speaking at an Urban Institute event last week, Johnson described three myths that continue to impede progress on school integration.

Myth 1: We tried school integration for a long time
Johnson described how America truly enforced school integration for only 15 years. “We reached peak integration levels in 1988, and each year since, we regressed… to the point where the levels of segregation are back to where they were before integration began in earnest.”

Myth 2: School integration didn’t work
As Johnson put it, “We turned away from school integration as a goal and desegregation as a strategy partly because of the myth that integration didn’t work.”

But Johnson’s research found far-reaching, long-lasting benefits from school integration and progressive education policies.

Myth 3: School integration is irrelevant
Segregated schools are still a reality and still contribute to achievement gaps. “Despite the unprecedented diversity of the nation’s schoolchildren, more than half attend hypersegregated schools, in which more than three-quarters of their peers are of the same race,” said Johnson.

Read the full article about myths about school integration by Robert Abare at Urban Institute.