Schools Betrayed ─ Roots of Failure in Inner-City Education

Inner-city schools suffered from far fewer problems a century ago, when black children in most northern cities attended school alongside white children. In Schools Betrayed, Kathryn M. Neckerman tells the story of how and why these schools came to serve black children so poorly.

Focusing on Chicago public schools between 1900 and 1960, Neckerman compares the circumstances of blacks and white immigrants, groups that had similarly little wealth and status yet ended up with vastly different educational outcomes. That difference, she argues, stemmed from officials' decision to deal with rising African American migration by segregating schools and denying black students equal resources---and it deepened because of techniques for managing failure that only reinforced inequality.

"One of those rare books that will become a standard reference not only for social scientists, historians, and school officials, but for educated lay readers as well....No previous study has provided a more definitive analysis of why so many black Youngsters and their parents have lost faith in the Public schools." William Julius Wilson

Neckerman's analysis provides a welcome antidote to much of the historical literature on American education, which rarely examines actual policy choices....Segregation did harm blacks, as this fine book shows. Journal of American History

Kathryn M. Neckerman is the executive director of the Center for Health and the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago.