Continuing Conversation on School Segregation

 On September 24th a group of concerned citizens will gather in West Windsor, New Jersey and discuss school segregation. The audience will consist of politicians, clergy, scholars, attorneys, activists, educators and parents. Passionate voices will fill the meeting place and the congregation will demand justice. Several solutions and potential solutions will be offered before the session is adjourned. People will leave with hope, feeling a sense of satisfaction. 

However, in spite of the best intentions, the importance of this event will be lost on the majority of the state's residents who will not know or care about such things. For in New Jersey, you see, school segregation is a problem or it isn't. While I want to suggest that New Jersey is like any other state, it actually is very different from most of the other 49. The Garden State ranks in the top five in school funding, school expenditures, school performance, and high school graduation. It also ranks in the top six in school segregation. 

The history of New Jersey's segregated schools goes back to the 19th century and the outgrowth of slavery. New Jersey did not want to educate emancipated children and hardly wanted to address their needs following the Civil War.  Abolition gave rise to distinct black communities and in those isolated pockets black families demanded equal services. The state slowly accommodated African American demands and passed laws for colored education. Then in the 1880s, the court mandated integrated schools in a South Jersey case. Yet, within the same decade, New Jersey created a segregated public boarding school.

During the late 19th century New Jersey created ethnically residential neighborhoods and enclaves. Whites were separated from other whites by language, religion, nationality, and local cultures. This practice was perfected throughout the 20th century. This model was easily transferable from ethnic minorities to racial minorities as they arrived in greater numbers in the mid-20th century.

New Jersey's practices would highlight strategies employed in other states. Residentially segregated, African Americans attended segregated schools throughout the 20th century. Neither the Great Migration nor Suburban Flight changed the overall picture. African Americans largely attended all black or nearly all black urban and suburban schools. Residential patterns enforced by real estate tactics, patterns of home development, highway development, and industrial and commercial placement fixed where African Americans could live and lived. During the late 20th century Latinx and Asian arrivals witnessed similar trends which also set their residential tendencies.  By 2015, New Jersey illustrated unique residential patterns in numerous northern and southern counties. 

The ongoing research of Gary and Myron Orfield highlights the degrees of New Jersey's school segregation and its residential segregation. In some places, school segregation does not reveal the contours of residential segregation. New Jersey is a tricky place as court decisions on residential segregation and school segregation produces different impacts on different locations. What the Orfields' demonstrate is New Jersey provides opportunities for change. 

Hopefully, this message of change will have an impact on local politicians including the governor. This is a big statewide election year and it is important for elected officials to correct serious injustices within the state. However, to do so will take political courage and new ideas of progressive liberalism. 

So what did the governor plan to do during the conference?  He planned his own conference on the impact of Tropical Storm Ida!

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