Brown vs Board of Education removed the barrier of denying people of color their right to an education, but 63 years later the fight to ensure that students attend a “good school” continues.
“Segregation is real, segregation is limiting someone’s access by virtue of the fact that they are different and in this country what that typically means is Black, Latino or poor,” said Dr. Steve Perry, founder and head of Capital Preparatory Schools, at a panel on Tuesday hosted by the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF).
Virginia Ford, executive director of Arkansas Information Network in Little Rock, said that with school choice programs she sees diversity increasing but in areas like Arkansas “they still have so far to go … kids are just really struggling.” Students that come to her church program cannot read the bibles given to them. “They ask us to read it to them, they cannot read,” Ford said.
“The public educational system as a whole has not delivered properly,” said Alonzo Smith, history professor at Montgomery College.
“It’s a different fight to make sure that all of the schools that we allow anyone children’s to go to, are good,” said Sekou Biddle, vice president of advocacy at the United Negro College Fund (UNCF).
Biddle said that parents should challenge the “sometimes racist notion” that public schools do not prepare students for their future. Biddle placed his children in the D.C. public schools he attended as a child. “People have worked hard to make these schools good, and to keep them good, and to make them better each year,” Biddle said, adding that getting people involved in finding ways to make education deliver real results for children is where progress will begin.
Many parents send their children to schools outside their district area to ensure their children attend a ‘good school’ and receive quality education. “I think we have grown into parents who want to have some say-so in how our kids are educated,” said Ford.
