False Hope Is Worse Than Despair.

During The Decades After Brown V. Board Of Education There Was Terrific Progress. Tens Of Thousands Of Public Schools Were Integrated Racially. During That Time The Gap Between Black And White Achievement Narrowed.

Apartheid Does Not Happen Spontaneously, Like Bad Weather Conditions.

So Long As These Kinds Of Inequalities Persist, All Of Us Who Are Given Expensive Educations Have To Live With The Knowledge That Our Victories Are Contaminated Because The Game Has Been Rigged To Our Advantage.

Childhood Is Not Merely Basic Training For Utilitarian Adulthood. It Should Have Some Claims Upon Our Mercy, Not For Its Future Value To The Economic Interests Of Competitive Societies But For Its Present Value As A Perishable Piece Of Life Itself.

Placing The Burden On The Individual To Break Down Doors In Finding Better Education For A Child Is Attractive To Conservatives Because It Reaffirms Their Faith In Individual Ambition And Autonomy. But To Ask An Individual To Break Down Doors That We Have Chained And Bolted In Advance Of His Arrival Is Unfair.