segregation and racial composition in schools - 2 reports

["Monty Neill" <monty@fairtest.org>]

Two reports on segregation and racial composition of US schools:


SEGREGATION IN U.S. SCHOOLS IS INCREASING
Public schools in the United States are becoming more racially segregated and the trend is likely to accelerate because of a Supreme Court decision in June, according to a new report by the Civil Rights Project of the University of California in Los Angeles. The rise in segregation threatens the quality of education received by non-white students, who now make up 43 percent of the total U.S. student body. Many segregated schools struggle to attract highly qualified teachers and administrators, do not prepare students well for college and fail to graduate more than half their students. The resegregation trend damages the prospects for non-white students and will likely have a negative effect on the U.S. economy, reports Matthew Bigg for Reuters. Part of the reason for the resegregation is the rapidly expanding number of black and Latino children and a corresponding fall in the number of white children, it said. Contrary to popular belief, the surge in the number of minority ch
 ildren in public schools was not mainly caused by a flight of white students into private schools. Instead, it said, the post-"baby boom" generation of white Americans are having smaller family sizes. Latinos are the fastest growing minority in U.S. schools and for them segregation is often more profound than it was when the phenomenon was first measured 40 years ago, according to the report, "Historic Reversals, Accelerating Resegregation and the need for new Integration Strategies." "Too often Latino students face triple segregation by race, class and language," it said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/29/AR2007082902111.html

AS MINORITIES INCREASE, STUDENT BODIES CHANGE
As minorities continue to increase their share of America's population, white students are less likely to attend nearly all-white public schools, while African-American and Hispanic students are more likely to attend nearly all-minority schools, according to a new report from the Pew Hispanic Center. The nationwide enrollment shift comes because the Hispanic share of the public school population has increased from 12.7 percent in 1993-94 to 19.8 percent in 2005-06. The African-American share of public enrollment rose from 16.5 percent to 17.2 percent during this period. The white share fell sharply from 66.1 percent to 57.1 percent. "In part because whites now comprise a smaller share of students in public schools, white students are now more likely to be exposed to minority students," said the report, titled "The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition of U.S. Public Schools." But as the white share of the nation's public school population shrinks, "it has also led to a dimin
 ished exposure of black and Hispanic students to white students," the report said. About three in 10 black students (31 percent) and Hispanic students (29 percent) attended nearly all-minority schools in 2005-06, up from 28 percent for black students and 25 percent for Hispanic students from the 1993-94 school year. During this same period, the proportion of white students attending nearly all-white public schools fell from one in three (34 percent) to one in five (21 percent). Nationwide, the number of nearly all-minority schools has increased from 5,498 in 1993-94 to 10,135 in 2005-06. The number of nearly all-white public schools decreased from 25,603 to 16,769 during this same period. The report said school populations are determined largely by local housing patterns, reports Bob Dart for Cox News Service.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/08/30/racenums_0831.html
Monty Neill, Ed.D.
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