Overcoming segregation.(Publisher's Note)

This year, communities nationwide celebrate the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case in which the Supreme Court established for the first time that the principle of equal rights under the law overrides local prejudicial habits, no matter how entrenched. That decision laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Brown itself is most notable as a signal to the end of Jim Crow. As such, Brown still applies to compelling civil rights struggles in schools and beyond.

Still a great deal of work is required to ensure that all students get an equally high-quality public education, a goal that we are far from meeting. J. Douglas Allen-Taylor and Lee Hubbard reflect on the usefulness of integration as a tactic for improving public education and bolstering communities. Eric C. Wat provides an overview of the most successful efforts to organize parents and students for school reforms ranging from new curricula to ending standardized testing. Chela Delgado frames the issue of teacher quality as a matter of a teacher's racial identification and engagement with ...