Evaluating the Role of Brown vs. Board of Education in School Equalization

In this paper we study the long-term labor market implications of school resource equalization before Brown and school desegregation after Brown. For cohorts born in the South in the 1920s and 1930s, we find that racial disparities in measurable school characteristics had a substantial influence on black males' earnings and educational attainment measured in 1970, albeit one that was smaller in the later cohorts. When we examine the income of male workers in 1990, we find that southern-born blacks who finished their schooling just before effective desegregation occurred in the South fared poorly compared to southern-born blacks who followed behind them in school by just a few years.

[1]  C. Clotfelter.  After "Brown": The Rise and Retreat of School Desegregation , 2004 .

[2]  R. Margo,et al.  The Labor Market Effects of the 1960s Riots , 2003 .

[3]  Ellen D. Katz.  Reinforcing Representation: Congressional Power to Enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments in the Rehnquist and Waite Courts' , 2003 .

[4]  R. Margo,et al.  Historical Perspectives on Racial Differences in Schooling in the United States , 2003 .

[5]  Jacob L. Vigdor.  The Pursuit of Opportunity: Explaining Selective Black Migration , 2002 .

[6]  Sarah J. Reber.  Court-Ordered Desegregation: Successes and Failures in Integrating American Schools Since Brown , 2002 .

[7]  Jonathan Guryan,et al.  Desegregation and Black Dropout Rates , 2001 .

[8]  Matthew D. Lassiter,et al.  The moderates' dilemma : massive resistance to school desegregation in Virginia , 2000 .

[9]  Petra E. Todd,et al.  The Schooling of Southern Blacks: The Roles of Legal Activism and Private Philanthropy, 1910-1960 , 2000 .

[10]  S. Rivkin,et al.  School Desegregation, Academic Attainment, and Earnings , 2000 .

[11]  Jeffrey Grogger,et al.  Does School Quality Explain the Recent Black/White Wage Trend? , 1996, Journal of Labor Economics.

[12]  M. Klarman.  Brown, Racial Change, and the Civil Rights Movement , 1994 .

[13]  Gerald N. Rosenberg.  The hollow hope : can courts bring about social change? , 1992 .

[14]  A. Krueger,et al.  Race and School Quality Since Brown vs. Board of Education , 1992 .

[15]  J. Heckman,et al.  Continuous Versus Episodic Change: The Impact of Civil Rights Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks , 1991 .

[16]  David Card,et al.  School Quality and Black-White Relative Earnings: A Direct Assessment , 1991 .

[17]  Dennis Chong.  Collective action and the civil rights movement , 1991 .

[18]  R. Margo,et al.  Race and Schooling in the South, 1890-1940: An Economic History. , 1992 .

[19]  Leandra A. Bedinim.  Separate but equal? Segregated programming for people with disabilities. , 1990 .

[20]  Joshua D. Angrist,et al.  Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Records , 1990 .

[21]  Finis Welch,et al.  Black Economic Progress after Myrdal , 1989 .

[22]  J. E. Newby,et al.  The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935. , 1989 .

[23]  M. Tushnet,et al.  The NAACP's Legal Strategy Against Segregated Education , 1988 .

[24]  R. Margo.  Accounting for Racial Differences in School Attendance in the American South, 1900: the Role of Separate-But-Equal , 1987 .

[25]  Finis Welch,et al.  New evidence on school desegregation , 1987 .

[26]  M. Tushnet.  The NAACP's Legal Strategy against Segregated Education, 1925-1950 , 1987 .

[27]  Jack Strauss,et al.  School Desegregation and Black Occupational Attainments: Results from a Long-Term Experiment. , 1985 .

[28]  Robert A. Margo,et al.  Education Achievement in Segregated School Systems: the Effects of "Separate-But-Equal" , 1985 .

[29]  J. Braddock.  A Long-Term View of School Desegregation: Some Recent Studies of Graduates as Adults. , 1984 .

[30]  A. Smith,et al.  Tolerance of School Desegregation, 1954–77 , 1981 .

[31]  J. Williams.  Reviewing a Decade of School Desegregation. 1966-1975. Report of a National Survey of School Superintendents. , 1977 .

[32]  F. Wertham.  Simple Justice. The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality , 1976 .

[33]  R. Kluger.  Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality , 1975 .

[34]  Paul B. Sheatsley,et al.  Attitudes toward racial integration. , 1971, Scientific American.

[35]  D. Wilkerson.  Special Problems of Negro Education , 1970 .

[36]  G. Orfield,et al.  The Reconstruction of Southern Education: The Schools and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. , 1970 .

[37]  Robert C. Nichols,et al.  Racial Isolation in the Public Schools , 1968 .

[38]  H. Bond.  The Education Of The Negro In The American Social Order , 1966 .

[39]  J. Lesson.  A STATISTICAL SUMMARY, STATE BY STATE, OF SCHOOL SEGREGATION-DESEGREGATION IN THE SOUTHERN AND BORDER AREA FROM 1954 TO THE PRESENT. , 1964 .

[40]  J. Mcpherson.  The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction , 1964 .

[41]  C. C. Ferguson,et al.  Desegregation and the Law: The Meaning and Effect of the School Segregation Cases. Second Edition Revised. , 1962 .

[42]  Ambrose Caliver.  Secondary Education for Negroes , 1933, The School Review.