|
|
| |
| Sat, Aug. 30, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| | Lawmakers mark Brown anniversary
Friday, May 14, 2004 By Alison Vekshin Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- Democrats in Congress on Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education with calls to renew the fight to bring equality to the classroom. In a two-hour Capitol Hill ceremony, lawmakers lauded the progress made since the landmark May 17, 1954, Supreme Court decision that struck down racial segregation in public schools by ending the doctrine of "separate but equal." But they cautioned that segregation by race and class is still prevalent in the nation's schools and that more work is necessary to realize the full promise of the Brown decision. "Too many schools continue to be segregated in fact if not by law," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. "Our celebration today is also a wake-up call. We must rededicate ourselves to the cause." Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., pointed to a dropout rate of 27 percent among Hispanic students. "One in 10 African-American children say their school is too unsafe to be able to learn in peace," he said. "In my home state of South Dakota, Indian children are forced to learn in overcrowded schools with no heat, cracked walls and holes in the roof." Lawmakers identified President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act as one solution, but repeated Democratic criticism that the president is underfunding the law. The 2002 law mandates standardized testing to measure student progress and penalizes schools that do not meet the new standards. School officials have criticized the measure as being too rigid. Among those attending was John Marshall, son of Thurgood Marshall, who argued the Brown case before the Supreme Court and went on to become the first black Supreme Court justice. Also present was John Stokes, one of the students involved in Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Va., one of the five lawsuits that were combined to form the Brown case. The Brown decision overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine established in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case, stating that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Also Thursday, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future released a report concluding that a two-tiered education system still exists 50 years after the landmark decision. Economics was a key factor in the education disparity among children from low-income and affluent households, the report showed. Low-income and minority students are often taught by unqualified teachers with a limited supply of textbooks in overcrowded classrooms in worn-down buildings, the report found. The report, called "Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education: A Two-Tiered Education System," resulted from an analysis of 3,336 public school teachers in California, New York and Wisconsin conducted by the Peter Harris Research Group. The report outlined a set of recommendations, including establishing school standards concerning teachers, appropriate class sizes, supplies and modern technology. "It's time for our nation's leaders at every level to acknowledge that these conditions exist," said Tom Carroll, the group's president. "We need to hold our public officials accountable for turning these conditions around." -- 30 -- |
