Separate and Unequal/Omarina's Story
PBS
Separate and Unequal - Sixty years after the Supreme Court declared separate schools for black and white children unconstitutional, FRONTLINE examines a case in Louisiana that illustrates the growing race and class divide in American schools and the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education. The East Baton Rouge Parish School District was forced to desegregate its schools in 1981 after a 25-year legal fight. But now, frustrated over the district's many low-performing schools, a group of mostly white, middle-class parents and business leaders are trying to break away and form a new city with its own separate schools, mirroring similar breakaway movements in cities around the country that critics say are reversing hard-fought civil rights gains. If the plan succeeds, the new district is expected to be more affluent and white, and will leave behind a population of mostly black students from low-income families.
Omarina's Story - FRONTLINE continues to examine a groundbreaking effort to stem the dropout crisis in America's high-poverty schools based on the theory that the make-or-break moment for preventing kids from dropping out of high school actually happens in middle school. The film follows Omarina Cabrera, a young girl from the Bronx.