New Jersey has some of the most segregated schools in the United States. Despite laws promoting school integration since 1881, a 2017 study by the

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

Civil Rights Project found that New Jersey has the sixth-most segregated classrooms in the United States. New Jersey has substantially smaller school districts per capita than other states, effectively dividing attendance by municipality. As a result, the proportion of highly segregated schools in New Jersey increased by two-thirds between 1989 and 2010, from 4.8% to 8%.

Background

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

, the most densely populated state in the country, with the second highest

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

, has a well-developed public school system. A change to its

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

in 1947 outlawed overt segregation in schools, a decade before ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the ...

''. In 1941, New Jersey had seventy districts with some form of formal segregation. Most of the segregation was in South Jersey, which was largely agricultural at the time. There was some in Bergen County, close to New York, where the average black classroom had 59 students. After World War II and the promulgation of the 1947 constitution, legally sanctioned segregation mostly went by the boards. That same constitution retained the state's commitment to

home rule Home rule is the government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governan ...

-- that townships and municipalities are the primary form of local government. Counties are relatively weak in New Jersey. The diversity of schools in New Jersey is a reflection of the communities they serve. In New Jersey there were 568 municipalities and 590 school districts in 2017. The

Bordentown School The Bordentown School (officially titled the Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth, the State of New Jersey Manual Training School and Manual Training and Industrial School for Youth, and referred to by other names) was a reside ...

(officially known as the Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth), was a residential, publicly financed co-ed boarding school for African-American children in Bordentown. The school was known as the "Tuskegee of the North" for its adoption of many of the educational practices first developed at the

Tuskegee Institute Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU; formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute) is a Private university, private, Historically black colleges and universities, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It was f ...

. Founded in 1886 and closed in 1955, the campus included two farms and 30 trade buildings.

Studies

Since 1996, the relative segregation of classrooms across the United States has been studied by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard until 2007 and subsequently at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at

. The first report on New Jersey was published in 2012. The second was published in 2017.

Findings

Racial isolation for Latino students increased in the period 1989-2010. Black students had less isolation in some areas and persistent segregation in others. New Jersey has taken steps to equalize spending in the various school districts, including subsidies to 31 largely urban

Abbott district ''Abbott'' districts are school districts in New Jersey that are provided remedies to ensure that their students receive public education in accordance with Constitution of New Jersey, the state constitution. They were created in 1985 as a resul ...

s.The History of Abbott v. Burke
, Education Law Center. Accessed December 10, 2017.

Contrast with the nation, region, and other states

New Jersey has the sixth-most segregated classrooms in the United States.

Initiatives

New Jersey was, for the most part, not affected by court-ordered busing in the 1960s and 1970s. In Latino Action Network v. New Jersey, activists sued the state.

References