Argumentative essay with cited sources and supporting evidence

Segregation in College

Racial segregation in the United States is associated with segregation or hypersegregation of services, facilities as well as basic provisions like education, medical care, housing, transportation and employment along racial lines. It is used in referring to socially and legally enforced separation of considerations and services offered to a give community on the basis of their race or skin color. The term racial segregation, in as much as it had and still has a wider implication than just the partial treatment of the African-Americans, it was and still is used widely in reference to this group of people.

Within campuses of most urban high schools, Latino and African-American students tend to sit in poorly resourced and overcrowded classrooms. Their teachers are not as qualified as those from predominantly white communities and hardly get basic essentials such as textbooks. Even though the Supreme Court of the United State gave a ruling that it was illegal to practice segregation way back, it still continues as was pointed out by Paul Street in his book "Segregated Schools." His argument on the state of U.S. schools is that the segregation increases more and more, (Paul Street, 2005). State of U.S. schools where defacto segregation as this is evidenced by a continued inequality on the in the distribution of educational resources, as well as undermining the educational opportunities towards students of Color. He as well discusses negative consequences of neoconservative and neoliberal policies that spearheads the accountability movement, increases high stakes testing, as well as paving ways for public schools privatization through charter and voucher programs.

It is on the records that schools especially the urban schools have continued to be segregated. It is evidenced that macro economic and social policies limit access to housing, jobs, and healthcare hence affects the quality of education that students receive. The practice of residential segregation of course results to inequalities in terms of funding schools that facilitate unequal and inadequate resources, facilities and teachers limiting opportunity for most of the low-income students and Students of Color. However, it is understood that the solution is not just as easy as integrating Blacks into white communities, the fact is that living in certain residential communities will either limits or promote the potential for receiving quality learning opportunities.

An example could be drawn from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) where students of Color experienced disparate treatment within an urban school system as compared to the white students. In CPS at the time when the research was done, only 9% of students were white, while 74% were black. This formed the characteristics of various schools within large cities, like Boston, Atlanta and New York. This facilitated criticism to the focus by Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP on integration for their approach has failed to acknowledge and address the issues of equity between white and Black schools.

According to the civil rights attorney, Derrick Bell, there was a fault on the decisions made on the issue of segregation in schools since there were no provisions which were made that require schools to offer Black students educational resources that was to be equal to those that is received by the white students, (Bell, D.,2004).

Based on the unjust segregation of U.S. schools, the prevailing political climate and the influence of neoliberalism and neo-conservatism has had an effect on the educational policies. An example is the impact of legislation " No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) on student. Though it provides students who come from the background with low income the opportunities of attending better schools, it fails to look at the other factors that may make these students fail to utilize the opportunity. This is because the provided subsidy for transportation may not be enough to cater for the student need forcing the parents to use other subsidy for food and rent but still this cannot be enough to cater for expenses for the long distance travel to school, leaving most parents with no option but to still take their students to lower-quality schools that are closer to their homes.

This brings out the way educational policies of accountability and efficiency do not speak to the broader economic and social inequities that continues within the lives of poor Students of Color. In addition, these available low performing schools that are located within low income communities are prone to closure for they have failed to comply with so-called minimum performance standards, (Darling-Hammond, L., 1998). The argument is that this ideology that fuels the standards and accountability movement tend to set the stage for market driven educational policies like for vouchers and charter schools.

Therefore, as much as segregation has been outlawed, the prevailing ideologies and policies reproduce segregated schools. Jean Anyon (1997) believes that true educationl reforms will take place only if we will have larger ideological, political, economic and social transformation. This means that for us to have a successful educational change within urban areas then it has to be part and parcel of a more fundamental social change. For that reason, poverty and racial isolation should be attacked in all corners for it does not only affect the poor but the affluent as well.

Though the other forms of segregation are still experienced in higher education, the Supreme Court gave its ruling that it announced in Brown I to be applicable to segregation. It made a distinct the State's obligations to remedy segregation in higher education. The Court affirmed that the states posses affirmative legal obligation to remedy the remnants of former de jure segregation. Based on the higher education the courts adopted the standard that states have the obligations of eliminating all policies as well as practices that perpetuate discriminatory effect that can be traced from the prior de jure system.

One may argue that we no longer have "black only colleges" currently, that might be considered as indication of segregation. But we still trace this action of segregation from the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) which were established at the time when segregation was the order of the day. If you were students of the color you were not allowed enter institution alongside a white counterparts. Political leaders and white civil were involved in creating such institutions. An example was Bluefield College which was ranked among the top most liberal arts schools in the whole nation, and was established in 1865 as a black teacher's College by white Virginia state lawmakers. Though desegregation has always proven to be a media for widening the window of opportunity for students of the ethnicities or races, to date some forms of segregation are still being fought so that it becomes completely eradicated.