Schools in Philadelphia and Delaware County among the most segregated in the country

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Just last week, the nation marked the 68th anniversary of Brown vs. the Board of Education.

According to a new study, though, the work of desegregating schools still isn't done, particularly in the Philadelphia area. It ranks among the most segregated metro areas in the country.

The study, which was done by The Century Foundation, looked at 403 metro areas across the country.

It found that Philadelphia and Delaware County are the most segregated in the country when it comes to Latino students. It's the 9th ranked for Black/white segregation.

The study is detailed in a report by non-profit news organization Chalkbeat

"The students who often need the most receive the least," said Dale Mezzacappa, who wrote the article for Chalkbeat.

The fact that Pennsylvania ranks so high for segregated schools doesn't come as a surprise to Penn State professor and desegregation expert Dr. Erica Frankenberg.

"The south is much more desegregated in terms of its schools than the northeast (United States)," she said.

The unbalanced desegregation efforts are a result of desegregation laws that applied more to the Jim Crow segregation in the south, but did little to curb the neighborhood segregation in areas like Philadelphia.

"There's a huge amount of segregation in housing in... the Philadelphia area," said Michael Churchill, an attorney with The Public Interest Law Center, which is part of a lawsuit demanding equal funding for schools in the state of Pennsylvania.

When it comes to neighborhoods, our 6abc Equity Report found that the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington area is the 13th most-segregated metro area in the country. More than half of neighborhoods are either 80% white or 80% non-white.

"It goes back to housing policies that the federal government endorsed that denied mortgages to Black people," said Mezzacappa.

Practices like that one denied many Black families the right to homeownership. Of those who were able to purchase homes, they were often in areas that are of less value and generate less property tax money for schools.

The Equity Report found more than half of metro-area residents who bought a house in 2019 would have to move to a different neighborhood to create an integrated pool of homeowners.

"We're not going to fix the inequitable funding in school by asking people to move," said Churchill. "That's the state's responsibility to make sure they're able to have effective schools."

The Public Interest Law Center argues that state supplemental funding to school districts with more students in need should match the amount of money that wealthier districts spend on their students.

"It's the state's obligation to make sure that there is equal funding in the state and that everyone has adequate amounts of funding to have an effective education," Churchill said, noting that the lower-funded schools are made up by more students of color.

Frankenberg also points out that Philadelphia is surrounded by smaller suburban school districts which can result in varying populations, levels of diversity and funding.

"Montgomery County has 22 separate school districts, but some of them are of vastly different racial composition," she said suggesting that solutions may be multi-layered. "Partner school desegregation efforts with, say, housing desegregation efforts."

The school funding lawsuit is scheduled to conduct oral arguments in July. A decision could be reached by the end of the year. Action News reached out to The School District of Philadelphia for comment, but did not receive a response. To access the full Equity Report, visit OurAmericaABC.com/Equity-Report