Policy Solutions: 70 years later, Brown v. Board is the great American underachievement

Reflecting on the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, columnist Jonathan E. Collins remembers a teacher at his middle school who helped integrate his school district as a student. Brown overturned another famous court case, Plessy v. Ferguson, which sanctioned racial separation so long as the conditions of those separated facilities were equal in quality. In the years since the Brown decision, the steady progress of school desegregation has slowed, and a third of all U.S. students now attend racially segregated schools.