1986: Education’s Re-Segregation

While Brown vs. Board of Education had ostensibly desegregated schools, the segregation existing in residential neighborhoods meant that educational institutions would, on the whole, remain disproportionately Black or white.

As reported by Bonilla-Silva (2018), researchers noted “a trend beginning in 1986 toward a resegregation of U.S. schools. As a consequence of resegregation during the decade of the 1990s, U.S. schools were more segregated in the 2000-2001 school year than in 1970.” (p. 26)

St. Louis area schools, like many schools in segregated cities, lacked what suburban white schools had – money, decent school buildings, equipment (especially up to date technology), textbooks, library books and resources.

Statistically, teachers and administrative staff have been paid less, which combined with the decrepit buildings and lack of political attention to fixing educational inequities, often led to low morale and teacher turn-over.  All of these “savage inequalities,” in the words of one educational researcher have been directly related to lower reading achievements and learning attained by Black students and their limited computer skills (Bonilla-Silva, 2018, p. 26).