Segregated Schools in New Jersey

"Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." This quote was taken from the landmark federal supreme court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, that forever changed the state of education in the United States. This is the premise set forth by the federal Supreme Court of this land almost fifty-five years ago.

Today, however, New Jersey is one of the nation’s most racially segregated states with “85 percent of all African-American and Latino students enrolled in 31 (the ‘Abbott’ districts) of more than 600 school districts.” (“Birthdays come and go, but the racism remains” The Star Ledger, March 23, 2006, Bob Braun, p. 17, 20)

In the 1994 and 1997 Abbott v. Burke decisions, the New Jersey Supreme Court ordered “parity” funding, meaning the state was forced to bring the spending in the 31 segregated districts up to the level of that of the state’s wealthiest districts. Ten years later when that spending has not solved the problems in these segregated districts, the funding is scheduled to be reduced to levels more on par with districts at the state average level of spending and not with the wealthiest districts as the Supreme Court mandated.

I have problems with what is going on in New Jersey’s schools for so many reasons, on so many levels. First, I am the product of an Abbott School district, that is up until the 5th grade when my parents high-tailed it deeper into the suburbs into one of New Jersey’s awesome, diverse, high-performing school districts. After teaching in the public schools of New York City, my hometown Abbott district, and even a semester at one of the state’s leading community colleges, I have come to understand more fully what students who cannot “escape” from these segregated school districts face while in school and upon (hopefully) graduation.

Economically speaking, it is really tough out here right now. How can people make it out here when so many jobs are just disappearing and, specifically for minorities, the schools are just not preparing students to be able to sustain themselves?

Racially speaking, I have serious problems with anyone arguing the lack of fairness that extra funding in segregated schools causes. I am a bi-racial American (like Obama) and this argument is ignorant because it does not address the generations of unfairness (the understatement of the century!!) that occurred to cause the conditions under which entire groups must exist. These conditions do not allow entire groups the opportunity to make the most of their lives, exercise their liberties or pursue happiness.

The fact that such hoards of people can express their outrage at the extra funding of the segregated, Abbott districts is appalling. Their numerous, one-sided comments in “letters to the editors” and blog forums speak to the disenfranchisement of the products of these segregated districts who would speak to the fallacy of their arguments if only they were not working so hard to survive without the leisure time to voice their opinions in public forums.

Minorities whose ancestors did not come to America by their own free will, seeking a better life for themselves, but instead were forcibly kidnapped and forced to toil for hundreds of years without pay, need to embrace their humanity and demand what other Holocaust survivors have fought and continue to fight for-to be made whole and to have justice served. We need to stop begging for it not to be okay for us to be gunned down, unarmed (Sean Bell case?) and demand reparations. And we need to stop being chastised for supposed mismanagement (Why was there no oversight or stipulations on spending?) or the unfairness of this appropriation and start demanding schools that aren’t segregated!

Since people want to complain so much about the extra funding, why don’t we look for alternate solutions that are best for the children of New Jersey? Why keep the Abbott districts- if they didn’t succeed with more funds, how will they do so with less? Has bussing been looked into? I have a feeling that the same people who argue so vehemently that Abbott districts should not receive extra funds would shut up if other alternatives that actually had New Jersey’s most vulnerable students’ best interests in mind were explored.