Introduction
New Jersey is an extraordinarily diverse state with dense and troubled central cities, elite suburbs, and beautiful rural areas and shores. Within minutes one can travel from a decrepit urban area to a top Ivy League university. Though it was long known primarily as a rich suburban state with troubled cities, it is now a state in flux where the rising generation will be the first without a racial majority. Though it has considerably lower shares of African Americans and Latinos than many other states, it ranks sixth among the states in terms of the highest segregation of black students and seventh in segregation of Latinos. Although the state has invested billions in trying to equalize school funding under a remarkable series of orders from the NJ Supreme Court, profound racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic gaps remain in educational outcomes.
School segregation in NJ is not only by race, but it is double segregation by race and poverty with black and Latino students in schools with far poorer classmates—conditions research shows to be linked to educational inequality. There have been no significant efforts to change these patterns. Because the commitment of the courts has been to create schools that are more equitable solely in terms of dollars and programs, segregation has gone unchecked. Without any statewide effort to integrate schools, segregation has surged as the racial transition of spaces across NJ continues.
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