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Access to fair and free public education is one of the cornerstones of American democracy. Yet, in many parts of the country, this ideal has only been realized in the twentieth century. As Thomas O'Brien argues, access to education in the state of Georgia has historically been restricted along the lines of race, class, and region. Black, poor, and rural students fared extremely poorly in the Jim Crow-era Georgia public school system as politically powerful groups fought to maintain a two-tier educational structure that favored their own children over those from the disadvantaged, voiceless majority. O'Brien shows that even after 1961, when opponents of segregation managed to open the doors of Atlanta's top public schools to minority students, the vast majority of Georgia's public schoolchildren continued to receive barely adequate or substandard education at the hands of local and state authorities.
This is an important and timely contribution to an ongoing debate about the shamefully uneven quality of public education in this country, the historic roots of the problem and the difficulties standing in the way of reform.