SCHOOL SEPARATION
*You can find the words in bold at the end of the page in the Glossary, with links to definitions.*
School Separation in New Brunswick
The history of school separation in New Brunswick from surrounding towns is also the history of school law in the state of New Jersey. Racial segregation in New Jersey has increased since the Civil Rights movement. Towns in NJ were becoming increasingly homogeneous. This effect is still felt today. Our resources do not explain the cause of this factor, but research outside of this scope points to systemic segregation in real estate.
“And in 1973, [Kevin H. Marino, counsel to the Public Advocate] said, when New Brunswick, with 40 percent minority students, asked to be combined with North Brunswick, the department of education denied the request. By 1989, Mr. Marino said, the New Brunswick school system was 90 percent black and Hispanic" (Romano).
In the NJ School Performance Report for 2015-2016, New Brunswick High School's student body is 85.3% Hispanic, 13% Black, 0.9% White, 0.6% Asian, 0.1% American Indian, and 0.1% Pacific Islander. New Brunswick Middle School is 91.5% Hispanic, 13% Black, 0.9% White, 0.6% Asian, 0.1% American Indian, and 0.1% Pacific Islander.
New Brunswick Connection
1973 - A new high school is built in North Brunswick, and white parents in New Brunswick requested the withdrawal of their 280 students. The Board of Education office was picketed by Black Home and School Organization to convince the municipality to end efforts to create a regional school district. Another boycott was made by Black students, and 40% of students were absent (Brown, 1973). The group was concerned that race would take priority over education, since the needs of Black students might be overlooked when the board prevented the withdrawal of the white North Brunswick students. Others were worried that city students would face hostility in suburban schools (Brown, 1975).
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To preserve the diversity of race in schools, a state official ruled that white students from New Brunswick were not permitted to attend neighboring North Brunswick High School where white attendance was already high. However, Black students were permitted to attend the neighboring school since Black attendance was low (Home News Tribune).
Why is this important?
School segregation after Civil Rights is the result of two main factors. The Boards of Education of many NJ towns decided to keep school district borders and municipality borders equal (Romano). Students from one town would not be able to go to school in another town, even if the other town’s school is physically closer. When a desegregation plan was demanded from the New Brunswick city’s Board of Education by the Office of Equal Educational opportunity in 1975, the deputy education commissioner wrote it was "not feasible" to desegregate schools such as Bayard, McKinley, Nathan Hale, and Livingston because of the large number of minority students living in the neighborhoods served by those schools (Levy).
Glossary
Click on the word below to learn the definition.
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Homogeneous
Sources
Brown, Neil. (1973). Black Community Asks Survey on Regional School. Home News Tribune.
Brown, Neil. (1973). Black Group Picketts City School Offices. Home News Tribune.
Brown, Neil. (1975). Regionalization No Answer, says Antipoverty Aide. Home News Tribune.
Home News Tribune (1973). Only Blacks to be Bused. Part of a series on Regionalization Ruling.
Levy, Bonny,(1975). Integration Program Required. Home News Tribune.
NJ School Performance Report. (n.d.). Retrieved December 02, 2017, from https://rc.doe.state.nj.us/PerformanceReports.aspx
Romano, Jay. (1991). A New Battle on School Segregation. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/21/nyregion/a-new-battle-on-school-segregation.html?pagewanted=all
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