by Nicholas Pugliese, NorthJersey.com
In a lawsuit that seeks to end what activists say is de facto segregation in New Jersey’s public and charter schools, a coalition of civil rights and other groups has sued the state to alter the long-standing practice of sending students almost exclusively to districts where they live.
Filed on the 64th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which said “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” the suit could force sweeping changes much as ideologically similar cases in the past have directed more state funding to poor school districts and required towns to provide thousands of units of affordable housing.