This book explores how the use of academic grouping and tracking can limit the educational opportunities available to black students. Equal educational opportunities are examined for 174 U.S. school districts with at least 15,000 students and a 1 percent black enrollment. The focus is on political forces that affect education. The analysis indicates that patterns of racial difference in the sorting practices of schools form a consistent pattern of action that is termed second-generational educational discrimination. How these policies developed is reviewed. The following changes in public policy are needed to provide equal educational opportunities for black students: (1) abolishing at-large school districts to increase opportunity for minority representation; (2) increasing the number of black teachers; (3) making the Federal Office for Civil Rights an aggressive civil rights action agency; (4) empowering the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to release data on racial employment by school district; (5) reevaluating academic grouping; and (6) banning corporal punishment. Results of the analysis are presented in 44 tables and 4 figures. Appendix A, Statistical Analysis, contains an additional 14 tables. Appendix B lists the school districts included in the analysis. A 379-item bibliography is attached. (SLD)