The Tortured Search for the Cause of Inequality

Less than twenty years ago the Supreme Court brought about a revolution. Brown v. Board of Education overthrew the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson to declare scholastic “segregation with the sanction of the law” humiliating and injurious to Negroes, and, by implication, responsible for their lower achievement. The decision was based on the finding of “modern science” that racially segregated schools are “inherently unequal.” Subsequently courts compelled congregation, even where segregation never had “the sanction of the law,” nor was deliberate, while the government tried to equalize further the educational opportunity of all groups through “compensatory” projects like Head Start. The cost, monetary and social, has been immense. But “modern science” warranted that scholastic opportunity could be equalized by these means and, therewith, achievement. The late Professor Edmond Cahn (who supported the legal finding of Brown) and I (who thought Brown went beyond law and evidence) were virtually alone in publicly questioning the evidence proffered by “modern science” and accepted by the Court.

The confidence of environmentalists (“modern science”) was rudely shaken when the Coleman Report (“Equality of Educational Opportunity,” 1966), mandated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, unexpectedly found that the scholastic achievement of students is almost independent of the quality of the schools they attend, when quality is measured by such conventional yardsticks as expenditure per pupil, teacher- pupil ratio, library and laboratory facilities, teachers’ salaries and degrees, etc.; and that desegregation makes, at best, a negligible difference (others have since found that it doesn’t help at all). In other words, unequal scholastic opportunity—segregated or otherwise—in no way accounts for unequal achievement. The family background of students determines academic achievement. The school does not.

Less than twenty years ago the Supreme Court brought about a revolution. Brown v. Board of Education overthrew the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson to declare scholastic “segregation with the sanction of the law” humiliating and injurious to Negroes, and, by implication, responsible for their lower achievement. The decision was based on the finding of “modern science” that racially segregated schools are “inherently unequal.” Subsequently courts compelled congregation, even where segregation never had “the sanction of the law,” nor was deliberate, while the government tried to equalize further the educational opportunity of all groups through “compensatory” projects like Head Start. The cost, monetary and social, has been immense. But “modern science” warranted that scholastic opportunity could be equalized by these means and, therewith, achievement. The late Professor Edmond Cahn (who supported the legal finding of Brown) and I (who thought Brown went beyond law and evidence) were virtually alone in publicly questioning the evidence proffered by “modern science” and accepted by the Court.

The confidence of environmentalists (“modern science”) was rudely shaken when the Coleman Report (“Equality of Educational Opportunity,” 1966), mandated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, unexpectedly found that the scholastic achievement of students is almost independent of the quality of the schools they attend, when quality is measured by such conventional yardsticks as expenditure per pupil, teacher- pupil ratio, library and laboratory facilities, teachers’ salaries and degrees, etc.; and that desegregation makes, at best, a negligible difference (others have since found that it doesn’t help at all). In other words, unequal scholastic opportunity—segregated or otherwise—in no way accounts for unequal achievement. The family background of students determines academic achievement. The school does not.