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Today marks 65 years since the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the seminal civil rights ruling outlawing school segregation.
Since the ruling, American public school systems have wrestled with how to ensure equality for students regardless of race or background. However, equality cannot be achieved when the structures and systems were designed to disadvantage students of color. It is not enough to allow access to our public schools; we must question whether the opportunities, supports, and resources provided to students are what they need and set them up for success. Today we need to ask ourselves how are we creating equitable learning environments where all students can succeed.
Despite dramatic improvements in education over the last century, the one-size-fits-all, delivery of curriculum, time-based system simply doesn’t work as well as needed. In fact, the traditional system was designed to rank and sort students through a combination of practices that bolster or reduce grades based on behavior and tracking systems that set different expectations for students, often based on their income or race.
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