Word: mcfrazier
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Dates: during 2004-2004
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...springtime of 1954, when news of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board ruling rippled out like an earthquake, one of those who felt the world shifting was Robert McFrazier. Then a 10-year-old student in an all-black school in Muskogee, Okla., 250 miles away from Topeka, whose school board was the name defendant in the case, McFrazier still recalls the hopefulness of that day: "When the principal announced the decision, a spontaneous roaring cheer came up. We were caught up in the excitement of thinking that things were going to be better, that we were going...
...critics say if you look beneath the surface, Brown hasn't totally delivered on its promise. McFrazier, who retired from the schools' top job last year, argues that while Brown may be a social triumph, it is an educational failure. "Brown accomplished what it set out to accomplish--to integrate schools," he says. "But has it done anything to improve academic success? No. It's failed miserably." Black students now have access to newer books in nicer facilities alongside their white peers, but as a group they still perform below white students, an achievement gap that has bedeviled two generations...
...Although McFrazier agrees that Brown was necessary and right for its time, he says that "we need to recognize what's changed in 50 years, and look beyond integration." For Brown to fulfill the promise of educational parity, he says, schools must involve parents more closely in monitoring children's progress, and remedial methods such as tutoring and study groups must be instituted. That's not always easy: a few years ago, McFrazier tried to make summer school a requirement for underachieving students but met resistance from parents who complained that it disrupted vacations and family schedules. What minority students...
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