The Unfinished Journey - Education, Equality and Martin Luther King, Jr. Revisited

Abstract

An educated society is important to the survival of a democracy, a sentiment echoed by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. Today most commentators concede that the implementation of Brown was a failure and that over the years there has been retrenchment. Although America’s schools are no longer racially segregated by law, a substantial percentage of school children are consigned to racially isolated schools. While commentators continue to argue for racially integrated schools, this article argues that racial integration alone is insufficient -- schools must receive adequate financial resources and be even more diverse socio-economically to adequately prepare America’s youth for the diverse world in which they will live and work. Legal rulings alone are insufficient to achieve this objective; rather a combination of approaches, and more importantly a change in societal attitudes about public education are needed.

Keywords: segregation, integration, race, public education