In 1954, the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education effectively dismantled the legacy of Jim Crow. The Justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Unfortunately, progress is reversible. Even the schools that were successfully desegregated are again racially segregated.
Today, more than half of the nation’s school-aged children are in racially concentrated districts in which over 75% of students are of the same race, and districts are further segregated by income. Race remains a major predictor of a child’s trajectory in life — a reality reinforced by nearly every measure of child well-being. The Child Well-Being Index can be a proxy for racial disparities across Greater Atlanta.

