The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education marked a turning point in the fight for civil rights in this country. On May 17, 1954, the nation's highest court declared the system of racial segregation unconstitutional and made equal opportunity in education the law of the land. Some of the first pioneers to cross the color line in this struggle were young children and teenagers going to school.

The battle for school desegregation ultimately expanded the struggle for social justice beyond the classroom, leading to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination and segregation in voting, education and the use of public facilities.

Diversity in Education Today

Immigration is changing the makeup of the nation's classrooms, and public schools are still struggling to achieve equal educational opportunities for students and close what is commonly referred to as the "minority achievement gap"—the lower average test scores, grades and college attendance and the higher dropout rate among Black and Latino students. An achievement gap refers to the performance disparity between groups of students defined by gender, race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

As the United States becomes an increasingly diverse nation, schools are also dealing with how to educate the growing percentage of students who do not speak English fluently.

Below is a list of the many challenges facing school districts and higher-education institutions across the nation.

The Impact of No Child Left Behind

In 2002, then-President George W. Bush signed into law a federal plan to rate the nation's public schools based on student test scores in reading and math. That plan, called No Child Left Behind (NCLB), set a goal that by 2014, every student, regardless of race, ethnicity or income, would be proficient in reading and math. While most people in education circles concur that NCLB ushered in a new era of accountability for schools, critics of the law have argued that it relies far too heavily on standardized testing, often referred to as "teaching to the test."

During his election campaign, President Barack Obama supported NCLB's broad goals of closing the achievement gap and holding schools accountable, but he criticized the amounts and types of testing the law required.

Currently, Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are working to overhaul the No Child Left Behind law. To that end, the government has set aside $4.5 billion, as part of the $787-billion economic stimulus, to spur public schools toward better achievement. The program is called Race to the Top and will reward states that make the most progress in raising academic standards, boosting teacher quality, tracking student gains and improving failing schools. Race to the Top requires states to abolish so-called "firewall" rules, which prohibit schools from evaluating teachers based on student performance.

Improving Diversity in the Work Force Is Crucial

Despite the increased focus on teacher quality, the issue of cultural competence and diversity in the teaching profession persists. Nationally, there is a shortage of qualified Black, Latino and American Indian teachers in elementary and secondary schools. This challenge of finding Black and Latino teachers is particularly acute in urban school districts, which typically attract disproportionate numbers of poor Blacks and Latinos as well as other economically disadvantaged newcomers from other countries.

SAT Gap for Blacks & Latinos Continues to Grow

The discrepancies in educational achievement—and the bias in many mainstream standardized tests—are highlighted by the results of the SATs, which are losing favor among progressive colleges and universities as a key admissions goal. The College Board recently released the average 2009 SAT scores by race and ethnicity, and the gap between Black and Latino students versus white and Asian students has widened, despite the College Board's publicized attempt to revise questions to eliminate cultural bias. The results send the clear message that the playing field is not level and that standardized tests are a poor prognosticator of success.

Whites and Asians scored above average in every category, with whites outscoring Asians in critical reading and Asians outscoring all groups in both mathematics and writing. Blacks and Latinos scored below the national average in every area measured, with Blacks scoring nearly 100 points lower than whites and Asians in each category. Additionally, male students outscored female students in critical reading and math while female students outscored male students in writing.

High-School Dropout Rates Continue to Rise

The numbers are staggering. More than 1.2 million students drop out of high school each year, representing one-third of all public-high-school students. For Black, Latino and American Indian students, half fail to graduate from public high schools.

Corporate America is taking note at the ramifications to its future work force. Last year, AT&T committed $100 million over the next three years toward reducing high-school-dropout rates and promoting work-force readiness. The commitment comes as part of AT&T's Aspire program, a large initiative launched in 2008 that targets at-risk high-school students and fosters those programs and organizations that have continuously proven to promote high-school retention and an easy transition into the workplace.

One Solution: Ambitious Rutgers Initiative Targets Disadvantaged Youths

Last year, Rutgers University initiated the Rutgers Future Scholars program to expand the diversity of its student body and help students with potential from low-income families to attend college. Each year, 200 rising eighth-graders—50 from each of Rutgers' host communities of Camden, Newark, New Brunswick and Piscataway, N.J.—are selected. Overwhelmingly from disadvantaged backgrounds, these students receive mentoring and college-prep help and participate frequently in campus activities. Those who apply and are admitted to Rutgers will be able to attend at no cost. The Rutgers Future Scholars program will eventually produce a constant pipeline of hundreds of urban students.

LGBT Students Continue to Suffer Harassment

Schools have a legal, ethical and moral obligation to provide equal access to education and equal protection under the law for all students. But for many LGBT students, schools are unsafe and dangerous places.

LGBT student abuse is a widespread problem in schools across the nation. It causes LGBT students to drop out, do poorly in school and engage in risky behaviors, such as skipping school, smoking, drinking alcohol and drug use. A study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed gay and lesbian youth are two to three times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexual young people.

LGBT students in middle school and high school appear to be the among the most vulnerable, according to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), the leading national education organization focused on ensuring safe schools for all students.

Among the statistics:

• More than 86 percent of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed; 44 percent reported being physically harassed; and 22 percent reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation

• Nearly 74 percent heard derogatory remarks such as "faggot" or "dyke" frequently or often at school

• More than half (60.8 percent) of students reported that they felt unsafe in school because of their sexual orientation, and more than one-third (38.4 percent) felt unsafe because of their gender expression

• The reported grade point average of students who were more frequently harassed because of their sexual orientation or gender expression was almost half a grade lower than for students who were less often harassed (2.8 versus 2.4)

(Source: GLSEN, The 2007 National School Climate Survey)

The Number of Children of Undocumented Immigrants Is Growing

Another hot-button issue is the availability of a free public education for children of undocumented immigrants. An estimated 11.9 million unauthorized immigrants currently live in the United States, according to a 2008 report by the Pew Hispanic Center. In addition, children of unauthorized immigrants are a growing share of students in grades kindergarten through 12.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 6.8 percent of the nation's elementary- and secondary-school students have at least one parent who was undocumented in 2008. In some states, about 10 percent or more of students are children of undocumented-immigrant parents.

The 14th Amendment prohibits any state from denying "to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The equal-protection clause requires that all American citizens must be treated equally by the law.

The issue of whether that equal-protection clause also demands equal treatment for those who are not citizens or who have entered the United States without documentation was answered by the Supreme Court. In 1975, Texas withheld state funds for educating children who had not been legally admitted to the United States and authorized local school districts to deny enrollment to these students. In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision ruled that the Texas policy blocking children of unauthorized immigrants from attending elementary and secondary school violated the 14th Amendment.

Undocumented High-School Graduates Have Limited Options

The issue of whether these same children of undocumented immigrants are entitled to a college education has yet to be decided. Every year, tens of thousands of undocumented teenagers graduate from high school and have nowhere to go. Unlike other students, these graduates cannot get a job, join the military or qualify for in-state college tuition. Some states have passed laws allowing children without documented status to attend college with in-state tuition and to apply for state grants if they have lived in that state for a certain amount of time.

A proposed federal law called the DREAM Act would grant these undocumented students the right to qualify for legal residency and eventual citizenship, military service, employment and eventual in-state college tuition. But so far, the measure has failed to win enough support in Congress, leaving states to cobble together their own policies for handling these students in higher education.