Watching the video this morning, the thing I was most surprised to learn was that Brown vs. Board really represented so many people and cases.  The story I learned growing up made Linda seem like Cinderella wishing for the ball. When she finally got to go, we were happy and the story was finished. Likely because of the way in which our Americanized fairy tales typically play out, it never crossed my mind nor the minds of my classmates to ask what happened next. We were used to Happily Ever After… The End.  Why should we ask? Linda was happy, right? Well, maybe…

The comments the woman made at the end of the video really made sense. Even now, this was the first time I can say that I honestly stopped and thought deeper about the Brown v. Board case. This was a hard decision for the plaintiffs to make. They exposed their children to anger and potential retaliation, but had faith that they would be able to protect them and that they were doing the right thing. Families lost their homes, were threatened with their lives. I think as a child I assumed that as integration became more common and then faced enforcement it was a big change that people adjusted to relatively quickly after it was completed. This, however, could not have been the case.

Even today’s portrayals (think movies such as Remember the Titans) fail to portray the tension and frustration completely. In this movie, all the students have to deal with is the new presence of racially different students. What it doesn’t mention is that many black students and white students were separated from their friends and sent to new schools. All of the sudden, they were forced to make new friends, get used to new teachers, and compete for positions in clubs, organizations, and on teams that they had likely taken for granted before. While I would never say that all of these issues should have been reason enough to halt integration before it started, I do think it’s important to remember and respect the sacrifices that these students of all races made, especially in light of the excessively positive spin it’s usually given in the classroom. As an example, I included a link to an elementary classroom pack on the Brown v. Board case. Included are a short story, discussion questions, and a set of worksheets related to the material.                                                           www.abanet.org/publiced/lawday/schools/lessons/docs/k6kansas.doc

Still thinking about how it must have felt for all of these students to make such large adjustments, I began to think that the idea seemed quite similar to the consolidation of rural districts that has been such a trend in the country during the last ten or fifteen years. As budgets get tighter and tighter, administrators and officials have begun to look for ways to help cut the costs of education. Individuals from urban areas have long argued that the consolidation of smaller schools would allow for greater opportunities, better supplies, and cheaper operation than the smaller, local schools that are currently in place.

There are plenty of others who argue against such consolidations. Growing evidence suggests that smaller learning environments do not harming the learning opportunities of students. Furthermore, the local governance allows for local parents and teachers to address local problems instead of trying to focus on a wider range of more diverse issues occurring over a much larger population of students. Further, in some instances, the case for consolidation seems to come more from its commonality than from evidence and information pertaining to specific schools and communities. The harm/benefit ratio will vary from one community to another, and there are likely many communities which will benefit greatly from having taken these measures, but the success of one cannot guarantee the success of another. For more information on the pros and cons on consolidation, please refer to http://www.newrules.org/journal/nrsum00schools.htm