Walter Fields, former political director of the NJ NAACP and leader of a new black parents’ group in South Orange-Maplewood Public Schools, describes “the modern-day version of Jim Crow in the corridors of our school buildings” and a kind of “performance art” in which the neighboring communities “engage in symbolic exercises of diversity in public settings that belie the true status of black children relative to their white peers.”

In middle school, the racial stratification is reinforced as black students are steered toward lower-level courses as they contemplate high school. By the time black children reach Columbia High School, they enter a building where de facto segregation exists and racial separation is evident — particularly in the placement of students in Advanced Honors and Advanced Placement classes. 

For example, in 2011-2012, 72.7 percent of Columbia High School’s AP mathematics students were white, compared with 14.4 percent black and 3 percent Hispanic. The disparities were nearly identical in other AP courses. 

What makes these statistics particularly sobering is that Columbia High School is now majority black. Class assignments are the result of low expectations of black students that take the form of discouraging their pursuit of tough courses, and persuading them to be content with a less-challenging curriculum and classroom experience.