Education Law

Is public education becoming ?post-racial??

An NSBA webinar this coming Friday will take on issues arising from one of the key intersections of race and public education in America. Details below, but first: A lot of the buzz surrounding Barack Obama?s victory focuses on what it heralds about race in American society and what it portends for the future on those questions. In some ways, the election of our first African-American president is the culmination of the civil rights movement. In other ways, some suggest, it represents a generational torch-passing?a page-turning that transcends the traditional 1960s paradigms of that movement.

So what about public education? The Supreme Court?s decision in the Seattle and Louisville student assignment cases, and its aftermath, focused attention on the reality of racial isolation in U.S. schools and left school boards and others re-evaluating whether and how to address the issue. Some analysts like Richard Kahlenberg have suggested that, as a matter of legal and social reality, it?s time to start focusing less on race and more on socio-economics. Others say we should just get over the diversity thing altogether and focus on good schools. At the same time, No Child Left Behind is quite overtly race-conscious, with its emphasis on closing achievement gaps among racial subgroups.

As these issues of race and public education play out, and as the nation grows more diverse, another focal point hits close to home: racial diversity on school boards. On that front, the results of one election last week were tossed out before voters even cast their ballots. A California judge had invalidated, in advance, the school board election results for Madera Unified School District, finding that the at-large election of the entire board was the reason only two Latino members have served in a district in which 82% of the students are Latino.

What does the law say about this? And does the racial composition of the school board make any real educational difference for children? Why would some districts want to use at-large elections anyway? And what are some options for boards?

NSBA?s Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) is offering a short webinar this Friday, Nov. 14, 2:30-3:00, to address these and other questions. Join NSBA Senior Staff Attorney Tom Hutton to review the most recent issue of the NSBA law and policy newsletter Leadership Insider, and what the research says. If you?d like to participate, just send an e-mail to CUBE?s Manager of Member services, Kevin Scott, at kscott@nsba.org.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on November 10, 2008 (boomark / email).