LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (CNN) -- Two black and two white students sit around a table at Central High School and speak in glowing terms about the racial climate and quality of education at their school -- the only working school designated a National Historic Site.
Little Rock's Central High is hallowed ground for America's civil rights activists. It became a flashpoint in 1957 when, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregated schools unconstitutional, President Eisenhower dispatched paratroopers and federalized the state's National Guard to protect nine African-Americans selected to attend the high school.
"In my opinion, we all work closely together," says Richard Torrance, an African-American senior. "We communicate outside of school at events, at sports. Here at Central it's so large that you have to interact or you'll be alone."
But while Central High students sound upbeat about harmony in the hallways, legal and social activists warn that a problem from the past may return to the classrooms in Little Rock and the rest of the nation.
The percentage of white children enrolled in America's public schools -- 60 percent in 2001-2002 -- is 7 percentage points less than a decade before, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
The Little Rock School District is increasingly becoming racially imbalanced as white parents enroll their children in private and suburban public schools in greater numbers each year. Little Rock's population is 55 percent white and 40 percent African-American. Black students, however, make up about 70 percent of the Little Rock School District's public classrooms, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.
for full article see....
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/05/15/sc...ion/index.html
Threaded Mode