Black students enter a Tennessee high school in 1956. (Library of Congress)

"...in the field of public education the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment." (From the majority opinion in the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education.)

As the Brown decision turns 50, there has been a flood of materials addressing the legacy of Brown, the struggle to implement it, the ways in which we have and have not lived up to the opportunity it gave us to create inclusive school communities. Much of this material celebrates Brown, and the courage of black community leaders and of the children who inevitably bore the burden of desegregating formerly all-white schools.

Virginia Walden Ford, director of DC Parents for School Choice, attended segregated schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. But then, thanks to Brown, she attended formerly white Central High. Walden Ford's organization has spearheaded local efforts to bring federally-funded vouchers to the Washington D.C. She nevertheless describes the court decision as "incredible, amazing, historic."

"I can hear my father, when I used to complain about going to Central, he'd say, 'Hold your head up, put your shoulders back and take advantage of every opportunity you can find at that school. People died so you could go to that school.' And I believed that," says Ford.

But sometimes the commemoration feels like an elegy, a graveside tribute to a dead ideal. "One thing I notice is that the language we use about Brown sounds so old-fashioned," commented Howell Baum, a University of Maryland professor of urban studies and planning. "Segregation, integration— people just don't talk about that much anymore. In terms of schools and school reform, so much of the language now is the language of markets, customers, and choice."

Valuing Diversity

The teacher's section of Tolerance.org offers rich resources on Brown v. Board. The History of Jim Crow is a website for educators on the history of segregation in the U.S.

While research shows that school desegregation has faltered in recent years, students and teachers alike value the classroom diversity that Brown helped create.

Education Week recently commissioned a national poll of public school teachers and students, asking them their opinions on the importance of racially integrated schooling. More than 80 percent of students and more than 90 percent of teachers said that attending classes, socializing, and participating in after-school activities with students of various racial and ethnic backgrounds was important.

Education Week has an on-line feature, Brown at 50.

Despite the surface appearance of near-unanimity, however, the poll reveals many fault lines. Almost 70 percent of white teachers believe that the goal of school integration in Brown v. Board has been met. But only 31 percent of black teachers agreed. (The figure for Hispanic teachers was 60 percent.) Meanwhile most black and Hispanic teachers believe that racially diverse classes improve student learning, but only 44 percent of white teachers agreed.

As usual, students and teachers experience the social universe at school quite differently, with teachers having a rosier view of race relations among students than students themselves. While 70 percent of students said that students of similar racial backgrounds "stick together" in school, only 54 percent of teachers agreed.

What Next?

The National Education Association offers classroom resources and background information. Harvard's Civil Rights Project has a wealth of research into school desegregation and related issues.

Researchers have found that while court-ordered desegregation plans were, for a time, effective in increasing the levels of integration in schools, the forces working against integration have proved stronger in recent years. Supreme Court decisions limiting desegregation efforts played a part, as did economic changes in urban centers, and the powerful pull of the suburbs.

Paradoxically, the increasing diversity of the U.S. population has in some cases gone hand in hand with increasing residential and school segregation.

Some urban public school districts have so few non-minority students that meaningful integration is out of the question. Similarly, some suburban districts are virtually all-white. Meanwhile growing numbers of Asian and Hispanic students, often concentrated in particular school districts, are enduring a new kind of segregation with added elements of language and culture.

Finally, gaps in academic achievement, high school completion, and college attendance continue to provide evidence that public education in the post-Brown era may or may not be separate, but is certainly not equal.

Where should we go from here?

"We certainly haven't fulfilled Brown," says Walden Ford. "We still are struggling. I don't know if the people involved in the cases at the time understood that white kids would flee the schools, and the schools would then become all minority. It changed what Brown needs to do. If you look at urban schools today, we are almost totally back to segregation."

Walden Ford believes that while charter schools and voucher programs will never supplant traditional public schools, they do bring something new to the equation. "We are looking at parents of color having choices," says Walden Ford. "That's part of the legacy of Brown."

Professor Baum has written about the importance of schools to the success of cities—and to the continued health of suburban communities as well. One point that he and others have made is that the racial anxiety produced by desegregation plans was one of the forces driving suburban sprawl.

Solutions to sprawl, Baum believes, won't be effective unless they address the urgent need to create urban school systems that are good enough to attract and keep middle-class families. Similarly, school desegregation can't succeed if the public schools become the educational system of last resort, for those without the resources to access private schools, charter schools, or vouchers.

"The language of markets that's so common in discussing education today is an individualistic language. It's about individual or family interests," says Baum. "The language of integration and segregation is about groups, and group interests. Individualistic language won't lead us to a discussion of those interests."

The emergence of charter schools and school vouchers, Baum notes, are part of looking at education as a marketplace. It's a view with certain limitations, he believes. "Vouchers or charters urge families to exploit resources as consumers, rather than to make an investment in a school community. Psychologically and socially, they lead in different directions than a more community-oriented approach."

At the same time, Baum says, "I think some students do benefit from voucher and charter programs."

Baum notes that among the most successful desegregation programs are the ones that include elements of choice. He cited the METCO program in metropolitan Boston, through which minority students from the city attend suburban schools. It's a voluntary bussing program that has operated quietly and successfully for more than 35 years. The problem with METCO is that it can't begin to meet the demand: there are more than 10,000 black families on the waiting list.

"As an intermediate step, various kinds of metropolitan mixing— like METCO— could be effective. There is clearly a real demand," notes Baum. He suggests that the language of No Child Left Behind, which allows children to leave failing schools, could make this possible in more places.

Walden Ford says that despite frustration with recent setbacks, Brown has changed society and can be the basis for more change. "We have a responsibility to look and see how we can fulfill the decision, how can we actually integrate the schools," says Walden Ford. "Let's not forget, it's only been 50 years, we were segregated for longer than that."