Race-Conscious Education Policies in an Increasingly Race-Evasive Context

Public education has long been viewed as a means to achieve our nation’s goals, including democratic equality, social efficiency, and social mobility. Despite extensive efforts to address segregation of students and teachers and inequality in educational experiences and opportunities on the basis of race/ethnicity, racial discrimination persists in education. Drawing from an interdisciplinary framework, the authors of this chapter begin with the premise that educational policies have never been neutral with respect to race and racism but merely vary in the extent to which they are explicit about race and racism. The authors review (a) legal developments related to the use of race-conscious policies in K–12 student and teacher (de)segregation and racially disparate student discipline; (b) what research says about the scope and consequences of these dimensions of racial inequality in education; and (c) what research says about the efficacy of contemporary policies in an increasingly race-evasive legal context. They argue that existing frames are inadequate to understand the intersectional ways that race still matters in K–12 education. Further, even in what the authors consider to be more ideal situations—where there is sound race-conscious policy—schools’ historical, political, and social contexts shape the implementation of policies in complex ways. The authors conclude that policy and research that reflect consciousness of the role of race and racism—both now and connected to the U.S.’s long history—are necessary if we are to truly realize our goals for public education, particularly democratic equality and social mobility, in ways that are free of racial discrimination.

Keywords: race-conscious; school desegregation; teacher diversity; student discipline