School Integration Matters

More than 60 years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision declared segregated schooling inherently unequal, this timely book sheds light on how and why U.S. schools are experiencing increasing segregation along racial, socioeconomic, and linguistic lines. It offers policy and programmatic alternatives for advancing equity and describes the implications for students and more broadly for the nation. The authors look at the structural and legal roots of inequity in the United States educational system and examine opportunities to support integration efforts across the educational pipeline (pre-K to higher education).

School Integration Matters examines:

• The need to increase school integration to advance equity.
• The roots of persisting inequity in U.S. schools.
• Current practices that adversely affect historically marginalized groups.
• K–12 integration and bilingual education policy.
• The challenges and opportunities to advancing integration within higher education.
• Future directions and policy recommendations for pursuing integration for equity.

Erica Frankenberg is associate professor of education and demography and co-director of the Center for Education and Civil Rights at Pennsylvania State University. Liliana M. Garces is assistant professor of higher education, co-director of the Center for Education and Civil Rights, and research associate for the Center of the Study of Higher Education at Pennsylvania State University. Megan Hopkins is assistant professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"In addition to being a vital resource for students of educational policy, it may now also be read as a guide for communities and districts." —American Journal of Education

"This is the book that reignites the civil rights movement for the 21st century, written and edited by a powerful new generation of civil rights scholars."
—Patricia Gandara, professor of education, UCLA
codirector, The Civil Rights Project

"The United States has the sad distinction of being the most unequal of the world’s prosperous nations. The scholars in this volume show that ignoring the inherent inequality of segregated education perpetuates stratification and educational failure. But they have gone much further, outlining and presenting evidence for a positive strategy of integrated education from preschool through college. This is visionary scholarship at its best, and it moves far beyond the policy vacuum and the black–white paradigm to suggest workable solutions for a multiracial future. Educators and policymakers need this book."
—Gary Orfield, distinguished research professor of education, law, political science, and urban planning; codirector, Civil Rights Project, University of California, Los Angeles