Leader Reives Statement on 70th Anniversary of Brown v. Board
“On the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, North Carolina is at a crossroads. We can see that our public schools are becoming more segregated, not less. And now Republican leaders want to pour money into taxpayer-funded private schools that will just exacerbate the issue,” House Democratic Leader Robert Reives said. “We have to focus on providing every student in North Carolina a fully funded public classroom. That should be our first priority.”
Today is the 70th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case. It’s often taught in our history textbooks. It completely transformed our system of public education and ushered in a new period of representative democracy. Our communities, state, and country are better and stronger because of it.
On anniversaries such as these, it’s critical to take a moment to reflect. Where do we stand with school integration in North Carolina?
A new report released this week shows a deeply troubling trend. The study’s lead researcher, Dr. Jenn Ayscue, stated: “Over the last decade, our schools in North Carolina have become more diverse, but they have also become more segregated, so we’re trending in the wrong direction.” The number of majority schools of colors has doubled since 1990. For intensely segregation schools of color, the percent has almost quadrupled over the same time period.
As lawmakers, we should take steps to address the trend and support more desegregated schools. So many academic studies and personal anecdotes prove integrated schools benefit all students.
But the Republican leadership of the NCGA is prioritizing the exact opposite. We anticipate an upcoming vote on HB 823 to hand out an additional half a billion dollars in taxpayer funds to private school vouchers.
The Opportunity Scholarship program — taxpayer funded private school vouchers — has become less and less diverse since it started in 2014.
Source: https://publicschoolsfirstnc.org/resources/fact-sheets/the-facts-about-school-vouchers/
Why do they want to give even more taxpayer dollars to a program that’s further resegregating our public schools?
The researchers who penned the report wrote how there is “robust evidence that the diversion of public funds away from public schools and unrestricted choice facilitated through universal voucher plans increase advantage for those who are already advantaged.”
They warned: “There is evidence that private schools contribute to segregation patterns in local school markets. Although we do not yet have data on the (de)segregating effects of the universality of the North Carolina voucher program, if voucher enrollment trends mirror charter enrollment trends, the effect of the program will be an increase in segregated schools.”
On this anniversary, let us not choose to further segregate our greatest public good: our public schools. Let us do what history teaches us is right. Let us choose to invest in schools that display the beautiful tapestry of diversity within North Carolina.
