Fifty years ago, the landmark Supreme Court decision Milliken v. Bradley made it exceedingly difficult to desegregate schools across district lines through the federal court system. Subsequent court rulings and recent backlash to racial equity initiatives have only made the landscape more challenging. But a report issued Thursday by Brown’s Promise, a group that advocates for school integration, says states can still do a lot to address segregation and school funding inequities — and offers a roadmap for officials and advocates to roll up their sleeves and get to work to desegregate schools at the state level.

“We are, across the country, too comfortable right now with the idea that segregation in our schools is just a fact of life and there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Ary Amerikaner, the co-founder and executive director of Brown’s Promise, a year-old initiative that’s housed at the Southern Education Foundation. “There’s a lot of other pathways to make forward progress.”

That call comes on the heels of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruling that held segregated schools are unconstitutional. Schools are less segregated today than they were 60 years ago. But over the last three decades, many have resegregated, especially as courts have released districts from desegregation orders and school choice policies have given parents more control over where they send their kids.

The share of intensely segregated schools — where 90% to 100% of students are kids of color — has nearly tripled to 20% over the last 30 years, according to recent research released by UCLA’s Civil Rights Project. Hyper-segregated schools also have higher poverty levels — a kind of “double segregation” that translates to worse educational outcomes for kids.

To address that, Brown’s Promise is advocating a two-pronged approach: Filing lawsuits in state court — especially in places where the state constitution guarantees children certain educational rights — and changing state policy.

Read the full article about desegregating schools by Kalyn Belsha at Chalkbeat.