DERRICK Z. JACKSON
Separate and unequal schools
By Derrick Z. Jackson | February 18, 2005
THE SCHOOL funding ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
returns us to 1964 when Malcolm X observed that 10 years after the Supreme
Court decision outlawing segregated schools, the federal government had yet to
enforce it. He asked, "If the federal government cannot enforce the law of the
highest court of the land when it comes to nothing but equal rights to
education for African-Americans, how can anyone be so naive to think all the
additional laws brought into being by the Civil Rights Bill will be enforced?"
It also takes us to 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, "The Negro had
been an object of sympathy and wore the scars of deep grievances, but the
nation had come to count on him as a creature who could quietly endure,
silently suffer, and patiently wait."
No one can be naive any longer. A half-century after Brown, students of
low-income school districts in our state are the creatures told to patiently
wait.
The students sued for faster funding to catch up to wealthier districts.
Even though SJC Chief Justice Margaret Marshall agreed that "sharp
disparities" still persist, the state won her over with the $30 billion it was
forced to spend on ed reform. She said, "I cannot conclude that the
Commonwealth currently is not meeting its constitutional charge."
Given the wealth of Massachusetts, the conclusion was a stake through the
ideal of equal rights. It was particularly stunning since the same court that
legalized gay marriage joined forces with the conservative education movement
to make it official that disparity is the expected American condition.
The victims are no longer just "the Negro" of King's and Malcolm's day. The
plaintiffs represented a multicultural outpouring of people who see that
neglect of schools in black neighborhoods was just a canary. Today, all but
the youth in the toniest suburbs are at risk.
The $30 billion means nothing to plaintiff Julie Hancock and her Brockton
High School that has 32 computers for 4,000 students. It means nothing to the
16,500 children, nearly equivalent to a third of the Boston public school
enrollment, who are on the Metco waiting list to flee to suburban schools. It
means nothing to Springfield's Latino students trying to overcome low test
scores in overcrowded classrooms where teachers fell to the budget ax.
The state defeated Hancock by saying it has closed the gap between
low-income Lowell and high-income Wellesley from $2,311 per student to $1,182
per student. But that's after a full decade. It remains the case that the
state is forcing all students to take the same standardized tests while
getting the poor just halfway to the starting line. That means the poor must
try twice as hard to overcome privilege. Funny, that's what black parents have
told their children for generations to convince them to overcome racism.
There is nothing to suggest how the remaining half of the gap will be
closed. Not when President Bush wants to cut $4.3 billion in education
programs while giving tax cuts to the rich. Not when he refuses to fully fund
No Child Left Behind. Not when his war in Iraq is about to reach $207 billion
in spending.
There once was much more money available for schools. According to the
Massachusetts-based National Priorities Project, the war has cost the
equivalent of 27.5 million slots for Head Start, or 24,000 new elementary
schools, or 40 million college scholarships, or 3.5 million music and arts
teachers. But to get anyone's attention on funding gaps, it had to be as bad
as New York, where its high court this week ordered the state to give New York
City $9.2 billion over the next five years for school renovations.
The SJC decision risks taking us much farther back than Malcolm or King. It
has a whiff of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision upholding
separate public accommodations. In Plessy, the court said, "If one race be
inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot
put them on the same plane."
America lived comfortably with Plessy for another half-century as "the
Negro" wore the scar of patience. Now, a half-century after Brown, a high
court says the children of the public schools must continue to suffer the
state's sloth. The state's tenacity in fighting Julie Hancock betrayed the
horrible truth in American education. When the children dared to ask for
equality, they ceased being objects of sympathy. They became enemies of a
state that has no intention of putting them on the same plane.
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is
jackson@globe.com.
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for the full legal opinion click here then click on opinions, then
on Hancock
