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Segregation Has Soared in America’s Schools as Federal Leaders Largely Looked Away

Articles | July 11 2019
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Segregation Has Soared in America’s Schools as Federal Leaders Largely Looked Away
Students line up for their buses at a district stop near Jefferson High School in Los Angeles on the first day of classes in 2015. In California, 58% of Latinos attend “intensely segregated schools,” a recent report says. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

By Seema Mehta and Michael Finnegan

Nearly 50 years have passed since Kamala Harris joined the legions of children bused to schools in distant neighborhoods as the United States attempted to integrate its racially segregated public schools.

Yet the consequences of racial and economic segregation remain a fact of daily life for millions of black and Latino children.

Harris’ attack on her Democratic rival Joe Biden over his opposition to federally mandated busing in the 1970s was a rare case of school segregation emerging as a flashpoint in a recent presidential race.

The emotionally raw clash on a Miami debate stage between a black U.S. senator and a white former vice president raised the question of what, if anything, the Democratic candidates would do to promote racial integration of America’s schools. (Read more)