http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36660242/ns/us_news-washington_post//
This article discusses the semi-recent resegregation in two Mississippi schools. In Tylertown Mississippi, a predominately black town, there has been a majority of white students throughout the years moving to the Salem school district, a predominately white town. Where Tylertown is looked at as the "black school" and Salem the "white school." That idea really hit home here in teh Cedar Valley, where in waterloo, East and West are split into the "white" and "black" schools, with the intention that the "white" school is better than the other.
In the article, they discuss that there has been some recent legal actions taking place. They are investigating into the "segregation" for reasons based on race. They are also looking into whether minority students are being treated differently than the white students in the schools. They go on discussing how resegregation has been a recurrent trend since the 1980's.
In this school district, they ahve had separate homecoming courts based on race and proms have been been separated based on race in the past as well.
After reading the article I couldn't believe that this is still going on. I have heard of having the better schools and that being based on race, which is still shocking to me, but the idea of having separate homecoming courts and proms within a school surprised me, even though it is in the south. This article both stigmatizes the black people in that town and the white people. In recent news, the white people in these towns have been labeled the "hillbillies of Mississippi." There has been a lot of negative press towards the white people in this town and they have all been greatly stigmatized.
I think this situation is actually quite reflective of what has been going on in school districts all over the country since the desegregation laws were put in place decades ago. As you mentioned, this is an issue that can even be found, to a lesser extent, here in the Cedar Valley. Parents that send their kids to a "white school" are under the assumption that those schools provide a higher level of education and opportunity, in addition to being "safer" than other schools. It is hard to say exactly what is going on here with all of the factors involved, but I think it is safe to say that race does play a role in where parents send their kids to school, particularly in this situation. Some of the policies, practices, and procedures in our education system perpetuate the racial inequalities we see today, not only in Mississippi. It would be interesting to see if there are any income differences for the families of students that have transferred schools compared to the black students who have stayed in the "black" school.
Generally and historically speaking, predominantly white schools tend to receive better resources such as teachers, advanced-level courses, and college prep courses. When this happens, funding then starts to be funneled into the "successful" schools over the "unsuccessful" schools, which in turn again perpetuates the issue. Although many lawmakers argue that money does not matter when it comes to the success of individual students, you still see people like this placing their children in private schools or "highly funded" schools over other schools that get fewer resources. So they say money doesn't matter, but their actions do not fit their words. Time will tell if this is indeed the case in Mississippi, but if it holds true the black school will suffer.