COMMITMENT TO INTEGRATED PUBLIC SCHOOLS

WHEREAS, on this the 60th anniversary of the landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court stated that “education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.  It is required in the performance of the most basic public responsibilities.  It is the very foundation of good citizenship,” thereby recognizing that providing students with diverse, inclusive educational opportunities from an early age is crucial to achieving the nation’s educational and civic goals; and

WHEREAS, in a 2007 Supreme Court case (Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1), five justices declared that there is compelling government interest in “promoting diversity and avoiding racial isolation,” and educational research affirms these assertions, concluding that integrated schools have academic, social and psychological benefits for all students; and

WHEREAS, not only has research shown desegregated schools to have a positive effect on student achievement, thereby closing the “achievement gap,” but in addition to these academic benefits, there are long-term social benefits as well: racially integrated schools are associated with a reduction in racial stereotypes and greater cross-racial understanding among all students; and

WHEREAS, the academic, social and psychological benefits of integrated schools are assets not only to the students in communities where they live, but to the progress of this nation as well, as integrated schools produce a more engaged democratic citizenry, a stronger workforce, and provide students with important skills for understanding diverse communities; and

WHEREAS, there is research to indicate that the race and socioeconomic status (SES) of the school student body matters more than the race and SES of the individual student, and many districts that have used SES as a proxy for race have seen their schools become increasingly segregated and their achievement levels drop, indicating that there are unique advantages to both racial and economic integration; and

WHEREAS, the Leadership Conference Education Fund, which lists the AFT as a coalition member, issued a report as recently as December 2013 to its Human Rights Committee on the lack of educational equity in the United States that targets de facto racial segregation in education and educational inequity as among the areas where the United States fails to fully implement its obligations to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; and

WHEREAS, this same report goes on to state that nationwide, as of 2010, 74.1 percent of African-American and 79.1 percent of Latinos attended what are referred to as “hyper segregated” and “supermajority-minority” schools, with such pernicious consequences as an extremely high association with poverty, low academic achievement, excessive bullying and high rates of suspensions, expulsions and school-related arrests/referrals to law enforcement; and

WHEREAS, since the 1990s the Supreme Court has sharply curtailed the power of parents to challenge racial inequities in schools; and districts not under court orders are largely prohibited from considering race to balance schools; and desegregation orders have been ignored, forgotten and lifted, resulting in resegregation of our public schools and a concentration of racialized poverty across the nation; and

WHEREAS, overwhelming data collected under NCLB show that most of the schools under sanctions are high-poverty, majority African-American and Latino, and that sanctions have not been effective in remedying the inequity and educational issues inherent in segregated education:

RESOLVED, that the American Federation of Teachers publicly affirm its commitment to integrated schools; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT will conduct and gather research to inform our members, parents, students and the public of the scope and impact of segregation, desegregation and resegregation across the nation and take the appropriate actions to publicize, promote and motivate the unfulfilled goal of the integration of our public schools; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT will encourage members and the public to lobby state and federal legislative members to implement changes to halt and reverse systemic segregation in all publicly funded schools, and support legislation that promotes and advances integration.