50 years later, Brown v. Board of Education tells us to 'Get in the Way'.

Fifty years ago, a group of parents changed America, winning a court case that overturned racial segregation in the public schools. The U.S. Supreme Court's May 17, 1954, decision in Brown v. Board of Education held that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

But as history students know, we study the past to learn about the present and build a better future. Brown's lesson for today is that, for all the progress it reflected and encouraged, America's schools remain menaced by segregation. The division now is not just between Black and White, but between White and non-White; urban, suburban and rural; native and immigrant; affluent and poor. These divisions are reflected in the achievement gap.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress by the end of 12th grade Black and Hispanic students' reading and math skills are roughly equal to those of eighth-grade White students. Research by Harvard University's Civil Rights Project shows minority students have no better than a 50-50 chance of graduating high school. Perhaps saddest of all, the Harvard research found that outside the South and Southwest, most White students have little contact with minority ...