Half a century after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed separate and unequal schools based on race, the Milwaukee area has undeniably returned to both separate and unequal education. This January 2001 report by Rethinking Schools documents how students of color in the Milwaukee area have been shortchanged by ever-widening disparities in school funding between the city of Milwaukee — which serves most of Wisconsin’s students of color — and school districts in surrounding suburban communities. The report, “The Return to Separate and Unequal: Metropolitan Milwaukee School Funding Through a Racial Lens,” includes extensive documentation of how Milwaukee’s school funding has fallen further and further below the state average as the percentage of students of color served by the district has increased.
You can download the complete report (1.8 MB) in PDF format.
You can also download just the executive summary (124 K) and table of contents.