Btw, Bobert. I like your title {though I keep wantin to put an apostraphe in it so it reads "Jim Crow's Back in Town"}.

But I agree with Mrrzy that Jim Crow never left.

I also agree with folks on this thread who have said that this is a complicated subject.

I know that diversity is important and that it can add to a quality education.

With regard to public education in the USA, I'd love to see MUCH more attention given to a better plan to fund public schools than using the tax base of the community-since that screws poor children regardless of their race/ethnicity.

I'd also love to see MUCH more attention given to ensuring that the curriculum in public schools is cultural competent and is not just a tourist, sometimey approach to non-Eurocentric history, cultures, and current events like it appears to be now in most schools.

And I'd love to see teacher's colleges and continuing education programs pay more than lip serve to this cultural competency curriculum so that they may actually know what they are supposed to be teaching and role modeling.

I'd love to see "No Child Left Behind" and other "teaching to the test" programs scratched.

In addition, I'd love to see MUCH more attention given to eradicating institutional racism in employment opportunities, the health care system, housing, public welfare, child welfare, mental health system, drug & alcohol system, public transportation, juvenile justice, and criminal justice systems.

I'd also LOVE to see more culturally competent arts and other cultural programs and more recreational programs available for and accessible to children, and teens, and adults.

Furthermore, I'd love to see more people who have "made it" working with children & youth who are in danger of not making it and/or working to address the real systems dysfunction that exist across the board in this nation.

All of these action steps impact whether all children and teens-regardless of race/ethnicity, or economic class get a quality education.

And all of these action steps should be doable in the richest nation in the world.