Brown V. Board of Education and Memphis

     Did Brown V. Board of Education ever happen in Memphis? The answer is a solid no it did not. In the 1950s when it was supposed to happen, Memphis claims they were not ready to integrate schools yet. They decided that they were going to create private schools, so that white families could send there kids there rather than having to integrate the public schools. Even today, we see that the Minority enrollment in private schools is 30% and in public schools it is 90% [1]. Memphis' population is 2/3 black, so if 90% of public schools are black then this just shows how many white kids attend private schools.

     This situation also shows the different levels of education a child can receive. In most cases, Shelby County Schools are not having that many resources poured into their school because most families are struggling financially. On the other side, white families are paying $20,000+ to send their kids to these private schools which means they are further more pouring into that school to make sure their kids receive the best education at hand. 

     Also within Memphis public school system, different boundary lines are being created. "As the original argument in Board V. Board of Education reminds us, those separate and unequal systems have especially pernicious impacts on an array of non cognitive outcomes. Most segregation in public schools today occurs because district boundary lines sort students into separate school systems.." [2] This is talking about the municipalities within the education system. Municipalities are the school systems that are zoned to the upper class neighborhoods and communities of Memphis, and tend to be the most successful schools. With this being said, these schools are only zoned to kids that have the financial opportunity to live in these zones, therefore; they get these resourceful schools in return. 

     Title one at the most basic level means individuals that live within low financial incomes. After the demerger happened, the municipalities received their share of federal funding even when they do not have any kids that qualify for this funding. With that being said, they basically took funding away from schools within Shelby County that had more than 90% of their population receiving Title One funding. This one instance also show the resource and money that is being taken from high poverty schools. 

     The looming question is will Memphis ever integrate their schools? Will Title one, high poverty, children ever receive a decent education?

[1] “Home.” Memphis, TN Private High Schools | PrivateSchoolReview.com, www.privateschoolreview.com/tennessee/memphis/high. 
[2] Frankenberg, Erica, et al. “Segregation by District Boundary Line: The Fragmentation of Memphis Area Schools.” Educational Researcher, vol. 46, no. 8, 2017, pp. 449–463., doi:10.3102/0013189x17732752.

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