Press Releases

Miami, Fla. – Today, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (FL-24) highlighted a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which found persistent and growing racial and socioeconomic segregation in K-12 public schools.

The report finds that more than one in three public school students in the 2020-2021 attended a school of 75 percent or more of the student population identifying with a single race or ethnicity. It also comes to an even more concerning conclusion that some school districts have actively broken up into separate, smaller districts which has led to new schools that have higher concentrations of white students and students from wealthier families.

“Almost seven decades ago, the Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education made it clear that segregated schools provide our students fundamentally different educational opportunities. As a lifelong educator and having personally attended segregated schools as a child, I know this to be the case because I have lived it,” said Congresswoman Wilson. “While the report breaks my heart, it confirms what we have been hearing from educators on the ground for years. We cannot allow our public education systems to subdivide, segregate, and subjugate our students because of the color of their skin. We must stand up and fight for equal funding, equal educational outcomes, and the support necessary to make sure our Black and Brown students are not being placed into a new system of separate and unequal schools that will impact their lives and that of their children for generations.

The GAO previously examined racial and socioeconomic school segregation in a 2016 report, which found a dramatic increase, from 2000 to 2014, in K-12 public schools with significantly high concentrations of poor and Black or Latino students.

The Education and Labor Committee has introduced and advanced two legislative proposals to help achieve equity in education. As a senior member on the committee, Congresswoman Wilson cosponsored both legislative proposals:

• The Strength in Diversity Act would provide resources to states or school districts that want to voluntarily develop plans to integrate their schools.
• The Equity and Inclusion Enforcement Act would restore the private right of action for students, parents, and local civil rights groups to bring discrimination claims based on racially disparate impact under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

To read a summary of the report (K-12 Education: Student Population Has Significantly Diversified, But Many Schools Remain Divided Along Racial, Ethnic, and Economic Lines), click here.

To read the full report (K-12 Education: Student Population Has Significantly Diversified, But Many Schools Remain Divided Along Racial, Ethnic, and Economic Lines), click here.

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