Justice lingers for students impacted by shuttered schools

Education is the door to our collective future. It's distressing then that all across the country, children of color are being deprived this basic opportunity. The deprivation takes many forms; harsh school disciplinary policies, referrals to law enforcement, and police in schools. Another way that children of color are denied a high quality education is through systematic and targeted school closures.

We know this because we’ve been organizing against school closures, which are occurring in predominantly African American, Latino and low-income communities. Across the country, these communities have watched as their schools, teachers, friendships and shared history are eliminated. Many students are pushed out of one school only to be forced to attend another school that is further away, with less experienced teachers, similar resource inequities and instability.

The problem is so severe that two years ago we took our case to the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Our organizations, Advancement Project and the Journey for Justice Alliance, filed three civil rights complaints in New Orleans, Newark and Chicago on the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education opinion. The complaints challenged the disproportionate closures of traditional public schools in these cities. In New Orleans, the closures of the last five traditional public schools impacted over 1,000 African-American students and only 5 White students. In Chicago, Black students were 26 times more likely to be impacted by school closures than White students. In Newark, Black students were 51% of student enrollment, but 86% of students impacted by school closures.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/education/285993-justice-lingers-for-students-impacted-by-shuttered-schools