70 Years after Brown Decision, School Segregation Getting Worse

2024 · VOA Learning English

This speaker is a general-american model. Each line below can be recorded and scored against it.

Transcript

1. May 17 marked the 70th anniversary of one of the most notable cases in U.S. Supreme Court history Brown versus Board of Education.

   0.0s–11.5sPractise this

2. The 1954 decision declared segregated schools unconstitutional. It also struck down the principle of “separate but equal,” which was used as the basis for U.S.

   11.6s–24.2sPractise this

3. government policies related to racial segregation. President Dwight Eisenhower famously sent federal troops to southern states to enforce the decision.

   24.1s–36.4sPractise this

4. Today, American schools cannot legally restrict students based on race.

   36.9s–42.8sPractise this

5. But because of long-held economic divides and other issues, some schools have become segregated in a de facto way.

   42.9s–52.5sPractise this

6. overall has become more racially diverse A team from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) recently released a report examining the ways segregation has changed in U.S.

   61.8s–76.5sPractise this

7. schools. The report is called “The Unfinished Battle for Integration in a Multiracial America from Brown to Now.”

   77.1s–85.8sPractise this

8. It was written by two UCLA professors Gary Orfield and Ryan Pfleger.

   86.2s–93.2sPractise this

9. The study found that schools have gotten less white, and more Latino, Asian and multiracial.

   93.6s–101.7sPractise this

10. But it also noted the number of schools considered “intensely segregated” tripled from 1988 to 2021.

    101.8s–109.8sPractise this

11. The study’s writers state that “schools of the South are dramatically less segregated than the apartheid conditions that had always existed before Brown.”

    128.5s–139.4sPractise this

12. However, Orfield and Pfleger add that the Supreme Court decision’s historic aims “have not been attained and, as this report shows, we have been moving backward.”

    139.7s–152.7sPractise this

13. The researchers found that Black and Latino students were the most highly segregated populations. In 2021, schools overall were 45 percent mostly white.

    153.0s–166.2sPractise this

14. For Latino students, the school average was about 75 percent non-white. Education experts say segregation especially hurts Black and Latino schools.

    173.5s–186.8sPractise this

15. This is because they are often underfunded and have higher rates of teacher shortages.

    187.0s–192.8sPractise this

16. Non-white school districts receive $23 billion less funding than mostly white school districts, a 2019 report by the nonprofit group EdBuild found.

    193.2s–205.8sPractise this

17. “The trends are toward increasing double segregation, by both race or ethnicity and poverty,” the UCLA study said.

    206.0s–215.6sPractise this

18. Researchers at another California university, Stanford, found that schools are getting more segregated even as neighborhoods have gotten more diverse and racial economic inequality has improved.

    216.0s–231.2sPractise this

19. The “findings indicate that policy choices not demographic changes are driving the increase,” said Sean Reardon.

    231.5s–240.2sPractise this

20. He is a professor at Stanford who specializes in how poverty and inequality affects education.

    240.5s–248.5sPractise this

21. But 70 years later, the issue of school segregation has gotten more complex. Latinos now make up the largest U.S.

    262.0s–270.9sPractise this

22. minority group and the Asian population has also grown.

    270.6s–275.3sPractise this

23. “Most Americans of all racial groups think integrated schools are better, but are divided about what, if anything, to actually do,” the UCLA study states.

    275.5s–287.1sPractise this

24. The researchers offered several suggestions for improving integration. One is for districts to increase efforts to register students from poorer areas and offer more diverse school programs.

    287.5s–301.1sPractise this

25. A 2018 article by the nonprofit group Edutopia described how some school districts have been successful in improving integration.

    301.9s–311.8sPractise this

26. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, for example, every school must have a balance of wealthier and poorer families.

    312.0s–319.8sPractise this

27. In San Antonio, Texas, bilingual schools and other specialized programs have brought in students from many different backgrounds.

    320.0s–329.1sPractise this

28. And in New York City, schools have made progress by removing standardized testing requirements.

    329.0s–342.5sPractise this

29. “American schools have been moving away from the goal of Brown and creating more ‘ inherently unequal’ schools for a third of a century,” writers of the UCLA study wrote.

    347.0s–359.6sPractise this

30. “It will soon become understood once more that schools that serve all children together with equity are central to any

    360.0s–374.8sPractise this