Segregation based on social class?

Response to HER Classic: Student Social Class and Teacher Expectations: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in Ghetto Education by Ray C. Rist

I find myself blogging about this reading with mixed emotions. Because this article was originally published in 1970 (I believe) and reprinted in 2000, I thought there would be little useful information worth my time. I was wrong, which brings me to the conflicted part of responding to this article. If I am reading an article written before I was born, shouldn't I feel like I am reading something from another time and place? I think I should feel that way. I didn't. I felt like Ray Rist was talking about teachers today. Maybe not exactly, but it was close enough for me to double check the publishing date and his credentials. Dr. Rist is, in fact, quite reputable. 

If you haven't read the article, I recommend taking the time to do so. If time doesn't permit at the moment, I will give you a quick run down: Rist was part of a study from 1967 to 1970 that followed three groups of African American students in a public school system from kindergarten to second grade. Two other researchers participated, so this article from Rist focused on his results from the school and students with which he worked. Basically, he found that one of two things was true: 

1. The teachers were brilliant and knew without testing them which students had the potential for success based on the limited knowledge gained in the first five days of kindergarten and some paperwork completed by some of the parents (such as employment of the parents, address, educational background, etc.).
2. The teachers were biased (consciously or otherwise) and segregated the students based on socioeconomic status of parents and "tracked" students based on perceived potential leading to inequitable teaching and grouping of students that continued through the study.

Okay, so I am willing to admit that these teachers did not do this maliciously or intentionally. Rist suggests that these teachers were actually good teachers, though perhaps misguided. Here is my issue (and it really isn't even an issue with the article or Rist): Why did I feel like I was reading a recent article? Has the school system changed so little that we haven't recognized that public education is perpetuating injustice based on social class?

Funny, but not really. Ironic, maybe?

Here is my question to you: If separate but equal was deemed inherently unequal in Brown v. Board of Education,  did the United States find a way around that by creating school boundaries? I mean, if all the kids in one area go to the same school, aren't we just segregating students based on their zip code socioeconomic status? As in, the nice houses in nice districts generate high property taxes, which, in turn, generate more revenue for those districts. The federal and state governments are not fully funding education mandates (in my opinion), forces local districts to fund locally. Here is a school in an affluent Atlanta district that managed to have $50,000 in PTA funds "stolen." How the heck did the PTA manage to raise so much that someone thought $50 grand wouldn't be missed? Other schools barely make it, while others are giving money away. How is that equitable? How is that an equal education? Schools giving away iPads versus schools without enough funds for class sets of books. Where is the equity in that?

Maybe Rist caught onto something early, and it takes a while to change the system. Or maybe there has always been inequity in public funding and education and just the marginalized population changes. I don't know. But it seems to me that the education funding formula perpetuates injustice against those who can least afford it. The "gap" between the haves and have-nots gets bigger every generation. Who will we marginalize next?