Reforms, Not Courts, Seen Key in Equity Fight

By Peter Schmidt

New York

As the 40th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down school segregation approaches, advocates striving to fulfill the ruling's promise of educational equality are looking not to the courts but to education reform.

That appeared to be the consensus among more than 200 educators, desegregation experts, and others who gathered here this month to commemorate the epochal decision in Brown v. Board of Education, handed down May 17, 1954, and discuss ways of addressing the racial segregation and inequality still found...