May 17, 2024 marks the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court decision that ruled segregated schools were "inherently unequal." At the time, North Carolina was one of 17 states that enforced de jure segregation, that is, segregation by law. The state of North Carolina and the school districts within…

The decades-long resistance to federally imposed school desegregation entered a new phase at the turn of the new century, when federal courts stopped pushing racial balance as a remedy for past segregation, adopting in its place a color-blind approach in judging local school districts' assignment plans. Using data that span 1998 to 2016 from North…

In 1969, four years after passage of the Voting Rights Act, African Americans in Greene County, Alabama, reclaimed control of local government, becoming the first community in the South to do so since Reconstruction. A half century later, however, Greene County remains an impoverished and largely segregated area with poor educational outcomes,…

The issue brief centers on the measures taken by Prince Edward County, Virginia, who shut down their public schools for five years in the late 1950s and early 1960s rather than desegregate the public schools after the "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka" Supreme Court decision. County officials provided private school vouchers for…

The Mississippi Association of Independent Schools was born out of the turbulent years of the Civil Rights Era. "Plessy v. Ferguson" in 1896 had established the doctrine of separate but equal facilities, including schools. While the decision in "Brown v. Board of Education," handed down by the Supreme Court in 1954, ruled that…

The question of how school choice programs affect the racial stratification of schools is highly salient in the field of education policy. We use a student-level panel data set to analyze the impacts of the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) on racial segregation in public and private schools. This targeted school voucher program provides funding…

Recent reports on discrimination in private schools have led some observers to decry the fact that private and charter schools receiving public tax dollars selectively exclude some populations from both employment and enrollment; others, however, note that in these and similar instances the schools have broken no laws. Both may be right. How can…

The South was the central focus of the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954. The landmark ruling held that laws mandating segregation in the school systems of the eleven states of the Old Confederacy, along with D.C. and six other states, violated the U.S. Constitution. Intense opposition met the…

This article aims to "modernize" the current legal debate over inequitable public school funding at the state and local level. The 1973 Supreme Court case of "San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez" established precedent, allowing for property-tax based education funding programs at the state-level--a major source…

As a part of the Individualized Education Plan (IEP), special education teachers work along with their student with special needs and their parent(s)/guardian(s) to create and implement Individualized Transition Plans (ITP) to assist the student with their transition to the post-school environment. As mandated by Individuals with Disabilities…

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…

Thomas Jefferson was one of the main architects of that famous "new world" state which rejected the rule of kings and queens in favor of a government by the people. He argued vigorously that in order to make such a governmental structure work, a strong system of public education was a basic prerequisite. Given the various problems which…

This third edition expands coverage on such topics as the law and students with disabilities, confidentiality, sexual harassment, student searches and tuition vouchers. It also includes some new topics such as bullying, copyright law, and the law and the internet. Both public and nonpublic school educators are aware that courts, over the last…

Parochial and private schools in the United States have maintained opportunities for students to attend same-gender settings without interference from policies governing public education. The gender composition and curriculum of public schools, however, have been influenced by societal regulations and expectations that have often utilized…

The United States Supreme Court's 1954 landmark decision, "Brown v. Board of Education," set into motion a process of desegregation that would eventually transform American public schools. This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of how "Brown's" most visible effect--contact between students of different…