Integrate Expectations

It’s been seventy years since (a very different) Supreme Court ruled separating children in schools by race was unconstitutional. Seven decades should be enough time to undo our segregated education past. But it hasn’t happened. In fact, for some of those decades, “American schools have been re-segregating. The country is more diverse than it ever has been, with students more exposed to classmates from different backgrounds. Still, around 4 out of 10 Black and Hispanic students attend schools where almost every one of their classmates is another student of color.” AP: 70 years ago, school integration was a dream many believed could actually happen. It hasn’t. “‘School integration exists as little more than an idea in America right now, a little more than a memory,’ said Derek Black, a law professor at the University of Southern California. ‘It’s actually an idea that a pretty good majority of Americans think is a good idea. But that’s all.'” (What a pretty good majority of Americans think seems to matter less and less these days.)