Education segregation in New Jersey

New Jersey has some of the most segregated schools in the United States. Despite laws promoting school integration since 1881, a 2017 study by the UCLA Civil Rights Project found that New Jersey has the sixth-most segregated classrooms in the United States.

New Jersey has substantially smaller school districts per capita than other states, effectively dividing attendance by municipality. As a result, the proportion of highly segregated schools in New Jersey increased by two-thirds between 1989 and 2010, from 4.8% to 8%.

Background

New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the country and the second highest per capita income, has a well-developed public school system. A change to its constitution in 1947 outlawed overt segregation in schools, a decade before Brown v. Board of Education.[1]

In 1941, New Jersey had seventy districts with some form of formal segregation.[1] Most of the segregation was in South Jersey, an agricultural region south of the Mason-Dixon Line. There was some in Bergen County, close to New York, where the average black classroom had 59 students.

After World War II and the promulgation of the 1947 constitution, legally sanctioned segregation mostly went by the boards. That same constitution retained the state's commitment to home rule -- that townships and municipalities are the primary form of local government. Counties are relatively weak in New Jersey. The diversity of schools in New Jersey is a reflection of the communities they serve. In New Jersey there were 568 municipalities in 2017. In New Jersey there were 590 school districts in 2017.[2]

The Bordentown School (officially known as the Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth), was a residential, publicly financed co-ed boarding school for African-American children in Bordentown. The school was known as the "Tuskegee of the North" for its adoption of many of the educational practices first developed at the Tuskegee Institute. Founded in 1886 and closed in 1955, the 400-acre (160 ha) campus included two farms and 30 trade buildings.[3][4][5]

Studies

Since 1996, the relative segregation of classrooms across the United States has been studied by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard until 2007 and subsequently at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA.[6] The first report on New Jersey was published in 2012.[7] The second was published in 2017.[8]

Findings

Racial isolation for Latino students increased in the period 1989-2010. Black students had less isolation in some areas and persistent segregation in others.[8]

New Jersey has taken steps to equalize spending in the various school districts, including subsidies to 31 largely urban Abbott districts.[9][10]

Contrast with the nation, region, and other states

New Jersey has the sixth-most segregated classrooms in the United States.[6]

Initiatives

New Jersey was, for the most part, not affected by court-ordered busing in the 1960s and 1970s.

In Latino Action Network v. New Jersey, activists sued the state.

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See also

References
  1. O'BRIEN, KATHLEEN (February 1, 2008). "Lessons in Black and White". Star-Ledger Archives. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
  2. "NEW JERSEY PUBLIC SCHOOLS FACT SHEET". State of New Jersey DOE. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
  3. Keyes, Allison. "Documentary Focuses On 'Tuskegee Of The North'", National Public Radio, May 24, 2010. Accessed December 10, 2017. "In its prime, Bordentown was referred to as the Tuskegee of the North. Only Bordentown, unlike Booker T. Washington's Alabama institute wasn't private, it was a coed African-American school publicly financed by the state of New Jersey. It was only after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision that the state of New Jersey moved to shut down the school, citing its inability to attract white students. It closed in June of 1955."
  4. Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth at Bordentown, NJ: Institutional History, New Jersey Department of State. Accessed December 10, 2017.
  5. DeMasters, Karen. "On The Map; Remembering a Boarding School for Black Students", The New York Times, October 1, 2000. Accessed December 10, 2017. "The former campus of the Bordentown Manual and Training School, a residential school for black high school students in Burlington County, is now owned by the state. Some of the buildings, dating to 1886 when the school was founded, are used by the Department of Corrections to house juvenile offenders, but most are vacant and sinking into disrepair.... The school flourished until the 1950s, when the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision ended segregation. The school closed in 1955."
  6. Pattani, Aneri (November 16, 2017). "New Jersey Schools Becoming More Segregated, New Report Finds". WNYC. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
  7. Flaxman, Greg (October 2013). "A Status Quo of Segregation: Racial and Economic Imbalance in New Jersey Schools, 1989-2010" (PDF). Retrieved 10 December 2017. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  8. Orfield, Gary (November 2017). "New Jersey's Segregated Schools Trends and Paths Forward" (PDF). Retrieved 10 December 2017. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. Abbott Districts Archived 2017-12-10 at the Wayback Machine, Education Law Center. Accessed December 10, 2017.
  10. The History of Abbott v. Burke Archived 2017-12-11 at the Wayback Machine, Education Law Center. Accessed December 10, 2017.
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