You may have missed it but, back in June, the U.S. Department of Education released a report called The State of School Diversity in the United States. Page 6 of the report noted that White students now make up less than half of all students enrolled in American public schools. In other words, they are now the minority. Here are a couple of relevant paragraphs from page 6:

In the 1950s, before the Brown decision, White students made up 9 in 10 students enrolled in public schools. Enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in 2022 indicate that White students now make up less than half (45 percent) of all students enrolled in public schools. While the overall school population has become more racially and ethnically diverse, some research suggests that, between 1991 and 2000, segregation between White students and Black students increased and, between 2000 and 2020, remained unchanged, and that socioeconomic isolation is likely to have increased between 1998 and 2020.

 

According to federal data, nearly one-third of students attend public schools in which the vast majority of enrolled students (75 percent or more) are students of color (Figure 4). Students of color disproportionately attend schools with a vast majority of students of color: 3 in 5 Black and Latino students and 2 in 5 American Indian/Alaska Native students attend schools where at least 75 percent of students are students of color (Figure 4), whereas about half of White students (46 percent) attend schools in which students of color make up less than 25 percent of the student population.

Racial isolation in schools generally results in a number of inequities, including reduced access to learning resources and qualified teachers. The report noted that the greatest driver of school segregation continues to be between-district segregation.

I encourage you to read the report to understand where American schools stand these days regarding desegregation. It’s not pretty. Also, language matters. Perhaps we now should be calling schools that are predominantly White ‘majority minority schools?’