During a busy schedule of meetings recently in Washington D.C., I made time to visit the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas exhibit at the Smithsonian. Marking the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to end “officially imposed segregation” in the public schools, the display is a powerful reminder of the distance we have come, and how far we have yet to go, in providing an equal education for all children. Visitors enter a divided classroom. On the left, in the “whites only” school, the seats have comfortable arm desks, the chalkboards are shiny and the chalk is plentiful. On the right, in the “colored” school, narrow benches sit on a floor of dirt and the walls are empty. A black and white documentary made in the 1950’s of actual classrooms runs continuously, a constant reminder of a reality that was not that long ago.
We have made great strides over the last 50 years but equal education continues to be a dream unfulfilled. Disparities between our poorest and most affluent students are still too common. The test-score gap between students of different ethnic groups continues to be a concern and too few of our best teachers choose to work in our poorest schools. Fifty years hence, as our grandchildren visit the one-hundredth anniversary of Brown v. the Board of Education at the Smithsonian, will they shake their heads in disgust at how little we have accomplished or will they marvel that we finally figured it out and left no child behind?
The magazine of Texas A&M University-Corpus
Christi
During a busy schedule of meetings recently in Washington D.C., I made time to visit the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas exhibit at the Smithsonian. Marking the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to end “officially imposed segregation” in the public schools, the display is a powerful reminder of the distance we have come, and how far we have yet to go, in providing an equal education for all children. Visitors enter a divided classroom. On the left, in the “whites only” school, the seats have comfortable arm desks, the chalkboards are shiny and the chalk is plentiful. On the right, in the “colored” school, narrow benches sit on a floor of dirt and the walls are empty. A black and white documentary made in the 1950’s of actual classrooms runs continuously, a constant reminder of a reality that was not that long ago.