"Kappan"'s editor talks with the distinguished historian Vanessa Siddle Walker about the hidden -- and lost -- tradition of political advocacy by Black educational leaders in the segregated South. To promote equity and excellence for all students, she argues, today's educators will need to recover the sorts of extensive and…

This article is a commentary on Erica Frankenberg's article, "Assessing Segregation under a New Generation of Controlled Choice Policies." Both school segregation and organized efforts to end segregation have a long and deep history in the United States. The Supreme Court's decision in "Brown v. Board of Education" (1954) has…

The Honorable Judge Nathaniel Jones litigated the "Milliken v. Bradley I" case before the U.S. District Court and Supreme Court in 1971 and 1974. Nathaniel Jones was born May 12, 1926 in Youngstown, Ohio, and served as the general counsel for the NAACP from 1969-1979. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter nominated Nathaniel Jones to the U.S.…

The article is a commentary on "Evaluating English Learner Reclassification Policy Effects across Districts," by Joseph R. Cimpian, Karen D. Thompson, and Martha B. Makowski, which is a wonderful display of the power of combining current analytic methods, present-day educational data sets, practitioner-researcher collaborative…

The Atlantic Philanthropies funded the work of the Positive and Safe Schools Advancing Greater Equity (PASSAGE) initiative, which is a unique approach to ending discipline disparities focused on partnerships between districts and community organizations. Open Society Foundations is considering funding similar work. For this interview, "Voices…

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…

The Supreme Court declared in 1954 that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Into the 1970s, urban education reform focused predominantly on making sure that African American students had the opportunity to attend school with their white peers. Now, however, most reformers take as a given that the typical low-income minority…

On January 20, 2009, essentially 200 years after the enactment of the embargo against the slave trade, 40 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Hussein Obama became the 44th President of the United States of America. Using the one drop rule for racial designation which has prevailed in the USA for most of its history,…

Attempts to evaluate the effect of the Brown v the Board of Education by answering three questions: (1) What was the initial effect of the decision? (2) What are the present challenges to the Brown decision? (3) What influence will the decision have on the future of American schools? (Author/MK)

A daughter of the lead plaintiff in the landmark ruling recalls the day of the announcement and offers thoughts on its meaning today. (EV)

This article suggests that any approach to the issue of access to higher education in the United Kingdom not view the approach of the United States in the recent University of Michigan cases as providing appropriate guidance. It is the author's assertion that the United States Supreme Court has failed to recognize the present effects of a long…

Supreme Court requirements that "specific intent" to discriminate must be shown should not apply to school segregation cases. The injury in school segregation cases is based on racial isolation itself and hurts only Blacks, unlike job discrimination cases like Washington v. Davis where Blacks are disproportionately, but not solely,…

Marshall's biographer describes how the great lawyer achieved victory and explains why today new enemies of integration are unraveling the gains of the recent past. (EV)

The scope of court desegregation orders depend on the nature and extent of the constitutional violation. The major desegregation cases are reviewed in terms of judgments and court-ordered solutions. In the cases of deliberate segregation over a long period of time, the liability of the school districts was high. (VM)

Unitary status in school desegregation occurs when the federal district court dissolves all injunctions and releases the school district from further court supervision. Reviews several lower court decisions of the late l980s and the recent Supreme Court's decisions in "Dowell" and "Pitts." (MLF)