Since first grade, Julian Morris, 16, has changed schools six times, swinging between predominantly white and predominantly Black classrooms.
None met all his needs, his mother said.
At predominantly white schools, he was challenged academically but felt less included. At predominately Black schools, he felt more supported as a Black student, but his mother, Denita Dorsey, said they didn’t have the same resources and academic opportunities.
Seventy years after the Supreme Court ruled separating children in schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional, Dorsey said the options available to her family in Michigan are disappointing.
“Segregation is abolished, sure, but our schools are still deeply divided along racial and socioeconomic lines,” she said. “It makes you think: It’s been 70 years but was it worth it?”
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The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling and desegregation orders were only the first steps toward the elusive goal of equitable education. For some Black families, school choice was critical in finding the best available option — and that has not necessarily meant the school with the most racial diversity.
Integration alone is not what Black families pushed for over the decades, said Bernita Bradley of the National Parents Union, an education advocacy group.
“We wanted integration with accountability and that’s not what we received,” she said. “That’s why choice needs to exist but we still need high-quality options.”
Denita Dorsey poses Thursday with her son Julian Morris, 16, in Saginaw, Mich.
Dorsey made what she called a “contentious decision” in 2022, choosing Saginaw High School in Michigan, which is predominantly Black, over Julian’s predominantly white charter school.
“I was challenged, and I had arguments with family. But Julian is now getting more support from his teachers and administration than he ever did at his previous schools,” she said.
The Brown decision is seen as a key impetus for the modern school choice movement.
As many white families turned to private schools as a way to avoid the court mandate, lawmakers — primarily in Southern states — began launching school voucher programs.
In Prince Edward County in Virginia, which closed all its public schools in 1959 for five years to evade integration, state and local officials gave white families tuition grants and tax credits to attend private schools. No similar options were provided to Black families.
The move inspired other states to adopt similar schemes before the Supreme Court deemed them illegal.
The arguments for school choice evolved over time.
Some thinkers in the 1960s argued that giving families money to spend on education how they saw fit would revolutionize education, incentivizing schools to improve or be left behind. Civil rights leaders stressed that choice could equalize education for lower-income families, which overwhelmingly include Black and Hispanic students.
Today, some of the loudest advocates for vouchers no longer approach it as a way to push for social justice, said Claire Smrekar, a professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University. Rather, the focus is on parents’ rights and lifting restrictions that may prevent wealthier families from using the programs at schools of their choice.
“There are no social justice arguments here for families trapped in poverty and zoned for low-performing schools,” Smrekar said. “The new argument is that everyone should enjoy this subsidy.”
Conservative attacks on how topics related to race and racism are taught in schools only added to the appeal of alternatives for some Black families. Some schools dedicate themselves to affirming students’ Black heritage.
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