Hot Topics in Education
Learning Outcomes
- Consider legal and equality concerns in education
When Americans are asked about their opinion of public education on the Gallup poll each year, reviews are mixed at best (Saad 2008). Schools are no longer merely a place for learning and socializing. With the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling in 1954, schools became a repository of politicized legal action that is at the heart of several issues in education.
Equal Education
Until the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, schools had operated under the precedent set by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, which allowed racial segregation in schools and private businesses (the case dealt specifically with railroads) and introduced the troubling phrase “separate but equal” into the U.S. lexicon. Brown overruled this, declaring that state laws establishing separate schools for Black and white students were, in fact, unequal and therefore unconstitutional in light of the 14th Amendment (which guarantees equality before the law).
While the ruling paved the way toward civil rights, it was also met with opposition in many communities. In Arkansas in 1957, the governor mobilized the state National Guard to prevent Black students from entering Little Rock Central High School. President Eisenhower, in response, sent members of the 101st Airborne Division from Kentucky to uphold the students’ right to enter the school. In 1963, almost ten years after the ruling, Governor George Wallace of Alabama used his own body to block two Black students from entering the auditorium at the University of Alabama to enroll in the school. Wallace’s desperate attempt to uphold his policy of “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” stated during his 1963 inauguration (PBS 2000), became known as the “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door.” He refused to grant entry to the students until a general from the Alabama National Guard arrived on President Kennedy’s order.
WATCH IT
Click on this link (https://youtu.be/xERXusiEszs?t=212) to watch a video showing footage of the Little Rock 9, the students who the National Guard was sent to prevent Black students from entering Little Rock Central High School. This next video is an interview with one of the Little Rock 9 students discussing her experience.
Presently, students of all races and ethnicities are permitted in America’s schools, but there remains a troubling gap in the relative quality of education they receive. The long-term socially embedded effects of racism—and other forms of discrimination and disadvantage—have produced a range of challenges for many students. Those from wealthy families and those of lower socioeconomic status do not receive the same opportunities. This is the result of many factors, including the policy wherein economic resources are dependent on local property taxes, which results in wealthier neighborhoods having higher quality schools. In demographic and sociological literature, thi