Was Brown v Board a Failure?

About 58 years after Brown v. Board of Education, Garland reports on a Stanford University study in “Was Brown v. Board a Failure?” What did the Stanford study find?

• In the years since Brown v. Board of Education, the number of school districts under desegregation orders has dropped significantly.

• In the years since Brown v. Board of Education, the number of school districts under desegregation orders has risen significantly.

• In the years since Brown v. Board of Education, desegregation orders have become unnecessary because schools are integrated.

• In the years since Brown v. Board of Education, desegregation orders still affect about the same number of school districts.

According to “Was Brown v. Board a Failure?” which of the following is an important trend discovered by research?

• Many African American students are choosing to attend schools where the majority of students are African American.

• Many schools remain under court order to desegregate as an attempt to enforce Brown v. Board of Education.

• Many schools are becoming re-segregated, divided between largely minority and largely white schools.

• Many school districts have ignored the requirements of Brown v. Board of Education.

According to “Was Brown v. Board a Failure?” what was the effect of desegregation on the achievement of African American and white students?

• The achievement gap widened.

• The achievement gap narrowed.

• Test scores for black students fell.

• Test scores for white students rose.

According to “Was Brown v. Board a Failure?” what was a major reason some African American parents came to oppose desegregation?

• They saw that desegregation reduced opportunities for their children.

• They felt that desegregation was unjust and unnecessary to promote equality.

• They supported the voluntary integration of schools as an improved road to achieve justice.

• They found that local schools were closed as a result of desegregation efforts.

What advice would the author of “Was Brown v. Board a Failure?” most likely offer to those who favor more efforts to desegregate schools?

• Reinstate busing where necessary to eliminate segregation by race.

• Avoid encouraging parents to send their children to a school with a diverse student body.

• Use new desegregation strategies that avoid the mistakes of the past.

• Concentrate resources in predominantly African American schools to raise achievement.

Which claim is most clearly supported by “Was Brown v. Board a Failure?”

• Traditional desegregation has been important to the success of African Americans, but justice has been achieved, so it is no longer needed.

• Re-segregation has damaged opportunities in African American communities, and it needs to be fought by increasing funding to schools.

• Re-segregation has damaged opportunities in African American communities, and it needs to be fought with traditional desegregation measures.

• Traditional desegregation has been important to the success of African Americans, but it needs to be replaced by new methods.

Which sentence from “Was Brown v. Board a Failure?” best supports Garland’s claim that past desegregation had improved educational outcomes for black students?

• Indeed, during the height of desegregation in the 1970s and ‘80s, the achievement gap between black and white students narrowed at the most rapid rate ever recorded in the history of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).…

• The hope behind desegregation was that it would bring together white and black children to learn with, and from, each other, and end the disparities that blacks suffered under legal segregation.

• It’s unclear what effect school “re-segregation” will have on minority achievement, though a large body of research suggests it certainly won’t help efforts to improve test scores, graduation rates, and college entry levels for blacks and Hispanics, a growing share of the U.S. population.

• In the years after Brown v. Board of Education, 755 school districts were under desegregation orders.