Decades after the 1954 "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka" unanimous decision to desegregate schools, the ideology of Black people having equal educational opportunities has not been realized; Black people continue to lag in educational attainment. However, the inequalities in life experiences between Black and White people limit the…

In this chapter, the authors use Black Feminist Thought (BFT) to examine the mathematics education and the educational attainment of African American females in a matrilineal line that spans five generations. A cross analysis of school experiences, from a maternal great-great-grandmother to her great-great-granddaughter, reveal a portrait of…

Black students in today's classrooms face major challenges unknown to white teachers. In this article, the authors share instructional practices, mindsets, and reflective questions that teachers can implement, practice, and respond to in order to support Black students to feel safe and welcome in their mathematics classrooms. In doing so, the…

This paper uses a hybrid policy analysis lens primarily informed by the work of Derrick Bell to make the case that policies and reforms in mathematics education were not designed to address the needs of historically excluded learners; instead, these policies and reforms are often designed and enacted to protect the economic, technological, and…

An examination of past research, policies, and reforms in mathematics education suggests that there have always been, and remain, tensions in conceptualizing the aims and goals of mathematics teaching and learning. While the disproportionality and conditions of marginalized learners is a cause for concern, it is important to understand that…

More than 60 years after the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision declared segregated schooling inherently unequal, this timely book sheds light on how and why U.S. schools are experiencing increasing segregation along racial, socioeconomic, and linguistic lines. It offers policy and programmatic alternatives for advancing equity and…

This study uses a North Carolina administrative data set to analyze racial segregation and student achievement in Wake County during race-based and income-based school assignment plans. We find a modest increase in the level of racial segregation in Wake schools during the income-based plan, but compared with other large districts in the state,…

Critical scholars have argued that mathematics education is in danger of becoming increasingly influenced by and aligned with neoliberal and neoconservative market-focused projects. Although this larger argument is powerful, there are often 2 peculiar responses to issues of race and racism within these analyses. These responses are characterized…

This study examines the impact of racial isolation on high school student performance in North Carolina, a state in the southeast United States. Our research goal is to investigate if increased isolation negatively impacts Black students' academic performance. Employing the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) dataset, we…

Ambiguity remains as to whether contemporary levels of racial segregation in and outside of the U.S. South are a serious problem. This article subsequently examines the math and science test-scores of 3rd-graders that participated in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. Test-score performances are estimated using multilevel statistical methods…

Adequate funding for the nation's schools to meet the call for higher student achievement has been a litigious issue. Spending on schools is a political choice. The choices made by state legislatures, in some cases, have failed to fund schools adequately and have incited school finance lawsuits in almost all states. These proceedings are generally…

The goals of this chapter are threefold. The first goal is to examine the scientific attainment of African Americans in the post-"Brown" era. The term scientific attainment is used here to describe more broadly mathematics and scientific achievement as measured in trend studies, academic coursework, and degrees. A second, related goal is…

This paper analyzes 19 studies that were considered by the National Institute of Education's panel on the effects of school desegregation in order to determine desegregation's effect on black achievement, black self-esteem, and racial relations. It is stated that, overall, the results show that reading achievement improves somewhat as a result of…

On July 28, 2006, a panel of experts briefed members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on the putative benefits of racial and ethnic diversity in elementary and secondary education. Four experts presented written statements to the Commissioners that assessed the social science literature on this issue. They also addressed whether or not…