Accountability In The 1950's

In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as part of his “war on poverty” in hopes of closing the achievement gap between low income schools, which typically house larger percentages of student of color, and their more affluent counterparts. The act has been redefined and reauthorized every five years since its original enactment. However, despite the last 50 years of education reform, the disparity amongst high and low poverty schools is as large as it ever was. In turn, the disparity between students of color and white students has only grown. Clearly, the one size fits all approach to education America has been using does not work. The U.S public education system is broken and, as a country, very

In 1954 the Supreme Court saw a case called Brown v. Board of Education of Kansas. This case was about segregation of public schools but before this was to be found unconstitutional, the school system in Kansas and all over the United States had segregated schools. For example, Topeka Kansas had 18 neighborhood schools for white children, but only 4 schools for African American children. (Brown v. Board of Education) Many people believe that the problem is no longer existent; however, many present day African American students still attend schools that are segregated. This problem goes all the way back to the 18th and 19th centuries when slavery was prevalent, yet still to this day it has not come to an end. Complete racial integration has yet to happen in many areas. This problem is not only in the Kansas City School District, but all over the country. The segregation of races in schools can impact a student’s future greatly. The Kansas City school district has been known to have the most troubled school’s systems for a long time.(Source) I’m sure the school board is well aware of the problem of racial inequality that is before them, but I will help them become more aware of the problem and how it affects a student’s future. In today’s society it is commonly overlooked on how important the subject of racial segregation really is. In this memo I will discuss the topics of racial socialization and school based discrimination in Kansas City, and the resulting effects that

Desegregation has been a pressing matter throughout the United States since the early 1600’s. Since the day that the first African slaves were brought to America, people of color have been fighting to gain equality, even to the death. They have made significant progress, one of the most important being the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery. Another significant advancement for racial equality was the ruling of the trial of Brown vs. Board of Education. Had the supreme court not issued the federal mandate of Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954 to enforce integration in public schools, desegregation would not have happened until after the civil rights leaders and activists completed their movement in the mid-to-late twentieth century.

The basic issue in Brown vs. Board of Education was the beginning of integration in the school system. Trial transcripts, interviews, meet the browns, and segregated Topeka will be used to support evidence and opinions in this paper. Due to the decisions made in The Brown vs. Board of Education it changed who could attend with diversity in schools and continues to change schools to this day. After reading this paper, it should show that all people should be treated equally. Just because a person’s skin color was different than another person’s doesn’t mean they should have had to go to another school or be treated any differently.

The road to the historic desegregation of Little Rock Central High school began in the 1930’s when the NAACP tasked future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall with fighting segregation in schools. By 1950 he had helped to strike down segregation in universities in several states. In 1951, the NAACP aided parents of black children attending public schools in Topeka, Kansas in attempting to overturn the state’s segregation laws. After a three year court battle, the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education Topeka culminated in the abolishment of school segregation laws in 21 states. (Seeds 1)

Back in 1898, the Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson allowed states to set segregation laws, and it created the term “separate but equal”. What transpired were public services such as restrooms, drinking fountains, restaurants, and methods of transportation that were exclusive to white, or colored citizens. Over half a century later, the case of Brown v. Board of Education turned that term upside down, and declaring that it violated the fourteenth amendment for people of all colors, including black and whites, to be forced away from one another in schools. No longer were there schools primarily for African Americans, the public school system was in the process of becoming a melting pot of people of all genders, colors, and backgrounds.

This paper is about the ways in which desegregation was used to address equality of education post Brown v. Board of education (1954). I will discuss the challenges of desegregation, what challenges minority students still face in America 's public schools post Brown v. Board, and how might we transform education so that all students receive equal opportunity according to Dewey and Paolo.

The Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of May 17, 1954 was one that formally acknowledged that, in the words of Chief Justice Earl Warren, “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” This support for desegregation was a turning point in ongoing protest against the laws created in the wake of Plessy v. Ferguson. And while belief that this victory would take time to be implemented nation-wide, civil rights activists underestimated determination white supremacists held against the federal decision. For over a decade integration on any large-remained a remote possibility, due to the political efforts in individual states, especially in the South.

Education is a valuable service in society that strengthen a workforce, a nation and bring forth awareness. Why should this be limited based on race or because of economic reasons, the quality should represent where the schools are located, if they are public? The Public School system belongs to society and those who contribute to what supports the education system. In choosing Brown v. Board of Education, a case which continues to have a great impact to this day, taking into consideration what was occurring at the time is how this case can be fathom. Today, equality is flawed, but far from the injustices of the 50s. However, steps such as the case of Brown v. Board of Education, others alike, and they were more than a court cases; the revolution needed for change. “On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued its landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling, which declared that racially segregated public schools were inherently unequal” (The Learning Network, 2012).

“The irony of Brown is that over the course of half a century… the decision has fallen so far short of its objective”(regression on integration). Since the Brown v. Board of Education decision was made our nation’s schools are officially integrated. However, it is a know fact that in many of our public schools nation wide that segregation is still alive and well. There are many schools that are almost exclusively white or exclusively black. In fact, according to Cohen seventy percent of black students attend schools in which racial minorities are the majority. In addition, one-third of African American students attend schools that are comprised of between ninety to one hundred percent minority. This is why people like Gary Orfield, director the Harvard project on desegregation, says that now is not the time to celebrate the brown decision. Orfield says that the potential is there, but they have not achieved the goals that they set out to do.

We have come to understand public education in the United States as a core principle of one’s rights as a citizen in spite of it not explicitly guaranteed within the Constitution. Despite the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, we continue to witness the fight for complete and total integration within our public schools and thus, racial equality. The 14th Amendment forbid states from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, but was unclear in terms of it’s exact intention with respect to public education. As a result, were unable to see the effective use and enforcement of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments until approximately the 1940s for a number reasons, but I believe that structural racism is the foremost cause. Today, we find ourselves struggling to achieve full integration within our public school system due to the covert intentions behind structural racism and therefore, it’s ability to overpower the law. Structural racism has the ability to impact legal authority in such a way where we end up with a lack of appropriate enforcement legislation at the Supreme Court level and a lack of acknowledgement and remedies for de jure segregation and thus, it is the primary cause of the current segregation within the American public school system.

First, within the context of the video discussions, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) represents a top-heavy approach to education with the federal government mandating reform and placing emphasis on testing outcomes. Indeed, NCLB is part of the accountability movement that has led to the development of ongoing measures that are designed to create statewide assessment systems to measure student performance in mathematics and reading and thus address areas for improvement among students not performing at passable levels in such subject areas (Ravitch, 2014). This framework has extended into the Obama administration (i.e., Race to the Top – RTTT), with an even greater importance attached to outcomes, where high-stakes testing remains the basis by which student success is defined (Ravitch, 2014). Second, measuring student progress has historically been a prevalent feature of the American public education system with respect to policy and practice. However, the underlying assumption of present accountability systems is that attaching consequences to education reform will elevate student achievement (Hursh, 2010). Using high-stakes assessments to retain/promote students and to withhold a student’s graduation diploma for not passing an exit-level examination are examples of how the current NCLB/RTTT accountability framework supposedly ensures that high school

The educational system in the United States has gone through many changes over the last century. These changes are a part of a constant movement toward educational excellence for every child in this nation. One of the most recent acts placed on public school systems by the government is to create more accountability for schools in order to ensure that all children are receiving the proper education. Part of this mandate is that public schools will require students to take tests in order to gather information about their academic achievement. Although educators and administrators claim that the mandatory ability testing programs being initiated in America’s public schools will hold students and teachers accountable for academic

Accountability. Public Education is in a bit of a crisis at all levels because to be truly successful, everyone needs to simply do their job. The problem is not that people aren't capable of doing their jobs, it is that they too often look for someone to do their jobs for them.

teachers on helping more of their students gain the skills and knowledge that they need