In 1954 the United States Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education declared that the current practice of segregating different races in public schools was unconstitutional. The belief that separate schools were permissible as long as they were of equal caliber was no longer a viable argument. States across the South went into political uproar over the federal government’s use of power in laws that were normally regulated by the state. The Brown decision, although not strongly argued, did little in desegregating public schools in Florida. Floridians viewed the ruling as a way of delaying integration since no specific deadline was set by the Supreme Court. Even today, over fifty years after the decision, segregation in schools is still an issue that Florida struggles to overcome. [i]
Prior to the Brown decision, “it was illegal under both the Florida Constitution and Florida statutes to educate children in an integrated classroom.”[ii] The schools went so far as to not allow storage of classroom materials used for black students with the ones used by the white students. There was generally no communication between the two races. The dual school system used by Florida designed a basic level of education that applied to every school whether black or white. Each county was in charge of distributing the funds provided by the state to the black and white schools. This practice, however, did not take into account the money gained from outside state funds. Private investments, grants, and communal donations helped the schools in upper-middle class districts afford to provide better resources to their students. Schools in the lower class districts, which were mostly black, were left with the bare minimum set by the “basic level” of education. This hindered black’s access to quality education, thus providing proof the dual education system was not equal. Florida law also required students to attend the school closest to their residence. Black schools were established in areas where the population was predominantly black. Therefore, the likelihood of black children attending white schools was very low.[iii]
Florida reacted concurrently with the rest of the South in jointly rejecting the Brown decision. The South felt that the decision was a way to postpone desegregation. The time frame for integration was their largest concern. The Brown ruling made segregation illegal but put no emphasis on how long the process should take. Florida’s initial reaction, on the other hand, was relatively less extreme than other areas throughout the South. The Superintendent of Public Instruction felt that the Supreme Court’s decision would have “no affect on Florida.”[iv] He felt that the state would desegregate only after the “considerable passage of time,” and the South did not have the capability of resolving its “racial problems in the near future”[v] The Florida Alligator believed white teachers would refuse to teach in integrated classrooms. The black teachers would also be affected by the new law. Senator George Smathers was concerned that “rapid desegregation” would not benefit black teachers. He thought “school boards would not engage Negro teachers to instruct mixed classes” in fear of repercussions from the white parents.[vi] Florida responded to the Brown decision by attempting to avoid and delay the progress of integration. It was obvious that the majority opinion opposed desegregation and knew changing the dual school system would not be easy.[vii]
Florida legislature approved nearly two dozen laws between the years 1954 and 1959 with the intention of keeping public schools segregated. Senator Cross of Gainesville publically promised “vigorous support for legislative measures to uphold segregation.”[viii] The Florida Continuing Education Council decided to “use every legal means to delay the desegregation of state schools.”[ix] In 1955, one year after Brown, Governor LeRoy Collins passed the Florida Pupil Assignment Law stating that “county school boards could assign pupils to schools based on socio-logical, psychological, and socio-scientific factors.”[x]If the school board felt that an individual would not “fit in” at a certain school, they did not have to accept their admittance. This law, along with many others, provided a loop-hole for people to avoid desegregation. The legislature believed these laws allowed for gradual adjustments towards integration, but the reality was that little effort was given to integrate.[xi]
The passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 officially outlawed racial segregation in all social aspects. The pressure was building on Florida schools to integrate. Early school year 1964, Duval County had no white students enrolled in black schools and only sixty-four black students enrolled in white schools. Similar situations plagued other counties. The majority of the state followed the dual school system even after the Civil Rights Act was passed. Conditions worsened at many black schools and black parents wanted their children to have access to a better learning environment. Funding was still unequally proportioned between the white areas and black areas.[xii]
It was not until the Alexander vs. Holmes County Board of Education ruling of 1969 that every school district in the South was forced to desegregate immediately. The Supreme Court set the deadline for February 1, 1970. The ruling named Alachua County specifically in the decision due to its lack of efforts to integrate since Brown sixteen years prior. Alachua County, along with many other counties, previously used “choice plans” as their approach towards integration. Choice plans put the responsibility of integration in the hands of the parents and students. They used a “pupil assessment plan” that followed the guidelines of the Florida Pupil Assignment Law, and “freedom of choice” plans that allowed students to attend any school they wanted as long as they provided their own mode of transportation. This forced the county to close Lincoln High School, the current black school, and build a new facility to serve as the integrated school. This same situation arose across the state of Florida. The newly integrated schools were relatively poor facilities compared to the all white schools. They had low academic achievement and limited financial resources. School boards redrew the boundaries of school zones in order to incorporate the mixing of races. Whites refused to send their children to the new schools. White resistance remained a major problem of successfully desegregating Florida Schools.[xiii]
By the 1980’s, the school board established the Magnet Program as a popular method of desegregation. Large counties including Duval, Miami-Dade, and Orange still had schools comprised of all black students. The state established programs such as the International Baccalaureate, as a way to attract whites to the predominantly black schools. The IB program was voluntary and did not require students to participate. It consisted of harder class schedules and heavier work load in order to better prepare students for higher education. Although these magnet schools practiced integration, the student body remained segregated. White students engaged in the magnet programs while the under privileged black children remained learning at the “basic level” of education. The magnet programs did little to aid the students who needed the most help.[xiv]
The Raise Achievement in Secondary Education Program, or RAISE, was also passed in the 1980’s. RAISE increased the required courses a student must take in order to graduate high school. It also increased the state funding for all grade levels and created a “state-mandated curriculum and graduation test.”[xv] Now the state controlled what the students learned and what they should know before graduating high school. Students at wealthier schools consistently scored higher, while lower-class students struggled. By setting a standard for students to graduate, the number of high school graduates decreased. The highest percentage of non-graduates came from the poor black areas.[xvi]
In 1991, state legislature passed the “Blue Print 2000” act that modified the graduation test by creating a set of standards and coordinating an assessment test with a comprehensive system.[xvii] The FCAT, Florida’s standardized test, spawned from Blue Print 2000. It led the way for the School Recognition Program that rewarded “schools that either maintained high levels of achievement or showed exemplary improvement.”[xviii] The socio-economical make-up of the school district did not influence the state’s decision on rewards. If a school did not do well or show improvement for three consecutive years, the state now had the power to take control of it. Governor Jeb Bush took the Recognition Program a step further by implementing a grading scale system based on the schools overall FCAT scores. The grade applied to the entire school as a way to track improvement and compare it to other schools around the state. The teachers and faculty of the high ranking schools received a form of reward. The state used the money earned from the lottery to fund this program.[xix]
Programs such as these only led to further segregation of public schools. Placing a ranking on schools based on the merit of its students, singles out the areas that have the most problems. Parents do not want their children to receive an education at a school with a failing grade. The schools with the lowest scores are generally located in the poorest areas. The students living in the lower class areas are the ones that usually perform the worst on the FCAT. The system is unfair because the lower ranking schools would benefit more from the extra funding that is rewarded to the high ranked schools. The lower ranking schools need more assistance because their students require special care in order to succeed in their education.[xx]
Segregation remains an issue throughout the state of Florida, and has developed into a class struggle as well as a racial struggle. The federal, state, and local governments understand the issue at hand and are working to ensure equal opportunities for all children in public schools. The dual school system no longer exists in the state of Florida, but the process of complete desegregation has yet to be accomplished.
[i] Joseph A. Tomberlin, “Florida Whites and the Brown Decision of 1954,” Florida Historical Quarterly 51 no. 1 (1972): 22-36.
[ii] William F. Jung, “The Last Unlikely Hero Gerald Bard Tjoflat and the Jacksonville Desegregation Crisis 35 Years Later,” The Florida Bar Journal (2009): 10.
[iii] Jung, “The Last Unlikely Hero,” 10; Tomberlin, “Florida Whites,” 22-25; Katheryn M. Borman, Tamela McNulty Eitle, Deanna Michael, David J. Eitle, Reginald Lee, Larry Johnson, Deirdre Cobb-Roberts, Sherman Dorn, Barbara Shircliffe, “Accountability in a Postdesgregation Era: The Continuing Sginificance of Racial Segregation in Florida Schools,”American Educational Research Journal 41 no.3 (2004): 605-631.
[iv] Tomberlin, “Florida Whites,” 27.
[v] Tomberlin, “Florida Whites,” 27.
[vi] Tomberlin, “Florida Whites,” 32.
[vii] Jung, “The Last Unlikely Hero” 10; Tomberlin, “Florida Whites,” 27-32.
[viii] Tomberlin, “Florida Whites,” 34.
[ix] Tomberlin, “Florida Whites,” 24.
[x] Borman, “Accountability,” 609.
[xi] Tomberlin, “Florida Whites,”24-36; Borman, “Accountability,” 609-10.
[xii] Judith bockel Poppell, “The Desegregation of a Historically Black High School in Jacksonville, Florida (PhD diss. University of North Florida, 1998), 90-102.
[xiii] Regan Garner, “School without a Name: Desegregation of Eastside High School 1970-1987,” University of Florida Journal of Law and Public Policy 16 (2005): 234-237.
[xiv] Garner, “School without,” 235; Borman, “Accountability,” 610.
[xv] Borman, “Accountability,” 612.
[xvi] Borman, “Accountability,” 612.
[xvii] Borman, “Accountability,” 613.
[xviii] Borman, “Accountability,” 613.
[xix] Borman, “Accountability,” 612-613.
[xx] Borman, “Accountability,” 612-613.
Bibliography:
Borman, Katheryn M.,Tamela McNulty Eitle, Deanna Michael, David J. Eitle, Reginald Lee, Larry Johnson, Deidre Cobb-Roberts, Sherman Dorn, Barbara Schircliffe. Accountability in a Postdesegregation Era: the Continuing Significance of Racial Segregation in Florida Schools.” American Educational Research Journal 41. (2004): 605-631.
Garner, Regan. “School without a Name: Desegregation of Eastside High School 1970-1987.”University of Florida Journal of Law and Public Policy 16. (2005): 234-237.
Jung, William F. “The Last Unlikely Hero Gerald Bard Tjoflat and the Jacksonville Desegregation Crisis 35 Years Later.”The Florida Bar Journal. (2009): 10-14.
Poppell, Judith Bockel. “The Desgregation of a Historically Black High School In Jacksonville, Florida.” PhD diss., University of North Florida, 1998.
Tomberlin, Joseph A. “Florida Whites and the Brown Decision of 1954.” Florida Historical Quarterly 51. (1972): 22-36.
