CONCLUDING REMARKS

The Supreme Court's decision in Brown v Board of Education was a cataclysmic ruling that gradually, but decidedly, changed the power configuration and focus of public schooling in the US. For half a century, educators, policymakers, and federal judges have struggled against a changing demographic and political landscape to fulfill Brown's promise of equal educational opportunity - that all children are legally entitled to an equal and adequate education regardless of race, ethnicity, or economic circumstances. In the intervening years, school reformers and equity advocates have proposed a number of strategies to achieve that end. Each has met legal, political, and practical obstacles along the way. The Supreme Court's most recent decisions, in Gratz v Bollinger and Grutter v Bollinger, have merely shifted the ground rules and reset the framework for action.