U.S. schools remain highly segregated.

This week, we unpack the findings of a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. [View this email online]( [NPR Education]( July 17, 2022 This week, we look at the findings of a new report on school segregation, secret schools in Afghanistan and how states are trying to fix the broken child care system. Plus, how Florida's Republican governor is trying to stop indoctrination happening in school. --------------------------------------------------------------- Yasmine Gateau for NPR Happy Sunday, This week, we have some new numbers for you. The U.S. student body is more diverse than ever before. Nevertheless, public schools remain highly segregated along racial, ethnic and socioeconomic lines. That's according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). More than a third of students (about 18.5 million of them) attended a predominantly same-race/ethnicity school during the 2020-21 school year, the report finds. And 14% of students attended schools where almost all of the student body was of a single race/ethnicity. The report is a follow up to a 2016 GAO investigation on racial disparity in K-12 schools. That initial report painted a slightly worse picture, but findings from the new report are still concerning, says Jackie Nowicki, the director of K-12 education at the GAO and lead author of the report. Source: Government Accountability Office analysis of Department of Education data, 1955-2020 Credit: LA Johnson/NPR "There is clearly still racial division in schools," says Nowicki. She adds that schools with large proportions of Hispanic, Black and American Indian/Alaska Native students – minority groups with higher rates of poverty than white and Asian American students – are also increasing. "What that means is you have large portions of minority children not only attending essentially segregated schools, but schools that have less resources available to them." "There are layers of factors here," she says. "They paint a rather dire picture of the state of schooling for a segment of the school-age population that federal laws were designed to protect." School segregation happens across the country Segregation has historically been associated with the Jim Crow laws of the South. But the report finds that, in the 2020-21 school year, the highest percentage of schools serving a predominantly single-race/ethnicity student population – whether mostly white, mostly Hispanic or mostly Black etc. – were in the Northeast and the Midwest. School segregation has "always been a whole-country issue," says U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., who heads the House education and labor committee. He commissioned both the 2016 and 2022 reports. "The details of the strategies may be different, but during the '60s and '70s, when the desegregation cases were at their height, cases were all over the country." The GAO analysis also found school segregation across all school types, including traditional public schools, charter schools and magnet schools. Across all charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run, more than a third were predominantly same-race/ethnicity, serving mostly Black and Hispanic students. There's history behind the report's findings Nowicki and her team at the GAO say they were not surprised by any of the report's findings. They point to historical practices, like redlining, that created racially segregated neighborhoods. And because 70% of U.S. students attend their neighborhood public schools, Nowicki says, racially segregated neighborhoods have historically made for racially segregated schools. "There are historical reasons why neighborhoods look the way they look," she explains. "And some portion of that is because of the way our country chose to encourage or limit where people could live." Though the 1968 Fair Housing Act outlawed housing discrimination on the basis of race, the GAO says that in some states, current legislation reinforces racially isolated communities. "Our analysis showed that predominantly same-race/ethnicity schools of different races/ethnicities exist in close proximity to one another within districts, but most commonly exist among neighboring districts," the report says. --------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter continues after sponsor message --------------------------------------------------------------- School district secessions have made segregation worse One cause for the lack of significant improvement, according to the GAO, is a practice known as district secession, where schools break away from an existing district – often citing a need for more local control – and form their own new district. The result, the report finds, is that segregation deepens. "In the 10 years that we looked at district secessions, we found that, overwhelmingly, those new districts were generally whiter, wealthier than the remaining districts," Nowicki says. Six of the 36 district secessions identified in the report happened in Memphis, Tenn., which experienced a historic district merger several years ago. Memphis City Schools, which served a majority non-white student body, dissolved in 2011 due to financial instability. It then merged with the neighboring district, Shelby County Schools, which served a wealthier, majority white population. Joris Ray was a Memphis City Schools administrator at the time of the merger. He recalls that residents of Shelby County were not satisfied with the new consolidated district. They successfully splintered off into six separate districts. As a result, the GAO report says, racial and socioeconomic segregation has grown in and around Memphis. All of the newly formed districts are whiter and wealthier than the one they left, which is now called Memphis-Shelby County Schools. "This brings negative implications for our students overall," says Ray, who has led Memphis-Shelby County Schools since 2019. "Research has shown that students in more diverse schools have lower levels of prejudice and stereotypes and are more prepared for top employers to hire an increasingly diverse workforce." The GAO report finds that this pattern – of municipalities removing themselves from a larger district to form their own, smaller school district – almost always creates more racial and socioeconomic segregation. Overall, new districts tend to have larger shares of white and Asian American students, and lower shares of Black and Hispanic students, the report finds. New districts also have significantly fewer students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a common measure of poverty. — [Sequoia Carrillo]( Assistant Editor & Pooja Salhotra, Intern, NPR Ed Now, let’s get into some news… Florida Gov. DeSantis takes aim at what he sees as indoctrination in schools. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has made it clear how he views public schools and what they're teaching children: He doesn't trust them. Since becoming governor in 2019, DeSantis has become known for taking combative positions on controversial issues, including education. He recently signed a number of measures aimed at preventing the sort of "indoctrination" he and his Republican supporters fear is taking place. [Read more here](. — Greg Allen, Miami Correspondent Secret schools enable Afghanistan's teen girls to skirt the Taliban's education ban. The official rule: no secondary school for girls in Afghanistan. But behind a veil of secrecy, women are opening small schools so that at least some of these teenagers are able to continue learning. [Read more here](. — Diaa Hadid, International Correspondent & Fazelminallah Qazizai, Producer Here’s how states are trying to fix a broken child care system. There's still a shortage of child care teachers and that's keeping parents out of the workforce. Dozens of states are trying to lure back providers and lower costs for families. Some states are using temporary pandemic aid, while others seek longer term funding. Last year, Louisiana passed a sports betting bill that designates 25 percent of revenue for early learning programs. Wherever the money comes from, advocates across the country say something must be done to ease the fundamental challenge of providing care families can afford, while allowing providers to earn a living. [Read more here](. — Jennifer Ludden, National Desk Correspondent And before you go, summer school is back! This is not your traditional summer school. Planet Money’s Summer School is a crash course in economics for your ears. See the world through the lens of an economist and you'll start to feel a little less overwhelmed when making financial decisions. And if you're in front of the classroom? Teachers, this is made for you, too. [Listen here](. See you next week. --------------------------------------------------------------- Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. [Listen Live]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [Twitter]( What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: [npred@npr.org](mailto:npred@npr.org?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback) Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! [They can sign up here.]( Looking for more great content? [Check out all of our newsletter offerings]( — including Music, Politics, Code Switch and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Education emails. 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