Disparate learning losses during the pandemic are highlighting the ongoing impact of segregation in America’s schools. Black students are twice as likely to have had no contact with a teacher, and minority students are falling months behind their peers in reading. It’s time to ask why schools remain more segregated today despite six decades of promises to integrate them.
When you look into how our education system assigns students to schools, the cause of persistent school segregation becomes obvious: We have institutionally linked housing — which was intentionally and explicitly segregated through government policy during much of the twentieth century — to education, our primary mechanism for promoting equality of opportunity and economic mobility.
Read Full Article »