The Impact of Brown v. Board of Education

Brown v. Board of Education

By: Ezra Akresh

    Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark supreme court case in the mid-1950s. Its ruling put an end to the “separate but equal” era and forced schools to desegregate. Many of the schools for people of color ceased to exist as many of the black students began to go to white schools. However, even though the law supported the integration of schools, many black students were harassed and even bullied when they tried to attend white schools. One of the most famous examples was the Little Rock IX. Every day on their way to school, they were physically and racially abused. It even got so bad that the National Guard got involved to maintain the peace and make sure the kids got to school safely. In the end, only three of the original nine graduated high school, and all were exiled from their community (NPS). As a result, many black families decided not to send their kids to school, which led to many uneducated generations of black people. This education gap can still be seen today through test scores and graduation rates. 
    The students at the schools for P.O.C. were not the only ones affected by the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. As the black schools closed, many African American teachers were left without jobs as the white schools refused to hire them citing that their degrees from black-run universities were not up to a high enough standard and that they did not want black teachers in power over the white students. Many of these teachers resigned from the profession, the effects of which can still be seen today. 
    On paper, the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education seemed like a significant step forward in the civil rights movement. In practice, however, there were many issues with the way the ruling was implemented, and it did not, in fact, help black communities or the education gap. If I was to change one thing about the ruling, I would have forced more state funds to go into the black schools; therefore, keeping them open. That way students would have a choice about whether they wanted to go to the white schools, and black educators would still have their jobs. I believe that if this were to have happened, the level of inequity in education would have been far less.

Works Cited

https://www.nps.gov/people/the-little-rock-nine.htm



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Real Knowledge

            According to the Cambridge Dictionary, knowledge is the “understanding of or information about a subject that you get by experience or study” ("KNOWLEDGE"). While knowledge can be experienced, for most children it is obtained through “study”. They go to school for 8+ hours a day and learn a curriculum established over 100 years ago. Even the structure of the classroom has failed to change. They have one teacher who is in charge, and everybody else is expected to follow their orders and do as they are told. They are taught not to speak up for themselves and to follow the crowd. The bias of these teachers, no matter how well they think that they can hide it, leaks into their classroom and onto the impressionable children. This personal prejudice furthers institutionalized racism inside of the school system.             For example, if there is a white teacher, specifically someone from a wea...
Read more

My Experience as a Homeschooler

       I have participated in many of the common forms of non-traditional education such as Uni’s Agora Days, Montessori, and homeschooling. I don’t remember much about my time at Montessori as I was only there for one year of preschool, but because I was homeschooled for 3+ years, its impact on my education was profound. When I was homeschooled, I took all my classes through online platforms such as Online G3 and Athena’s Academy. Obviously, my parents forced me to take the core class (math, English, science), but aside from that, I was allowed to choose my own schedule. For 2 years, I took a grammar class called Magic Lens, which analyzed complex sentences and broke down the function of each word and clause. In the 3rd year, I decided to take a coding course that taught me how to create my own Minecraft mod.       Through my time as a homeschooling student, I learned how important creativity is regarding my education. I had a great deal of freed...
Read more