Concerned about the nation’s growing number of racially isolated schools, a national group of legal, political, education, and civil rights advocates has issued a report it hopes will spur discussion of the value of racial and ethnic diversity in schools.
The report, “With All Deliberate Speed—Achievement, Citizenship, and Diversity in American Education,” is available from the KnowledgeWorks Foundation.
Chaired by former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, the consortium of leaders began meeting to discuss the 50th anniversary last year of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which struck down segregated public school systems.
The report, “With All Deliberate Speed—Achievement, Citizenship, and Diversity in American Education,” urges that the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, scheduled for 2007, take into account the benefits of diversity, which it calls a “parallel concern” along with increasing academic achievement.
The paper also suggests that the definition of a highly qualified teacher under the federal law should include cultural-diversity training.
