State of the South 2004 is the fifth edition in North Carolina Manpower Development Corporation MDC's State of the South series, which examines the region's economic and demographic landscape and how Southerners are faring within it. This edition considers the region through the lens of public education, 50 years after the Supreme Court?s Brown v. Board of Education decision. That revolutionary ruling struck a hard blow to American apartheid and began the process of allowing millions of black and brown Southerners full access to America's principal ladder of opportunity: good public schools. Brown v. Board forced America to correct a shameful and misguided history of racial exclusion in education. Once liberated, our people and our region were able to accelerate the South?s progress toward economic parity with the rest of the United States. The South has changed a lot since the Brown ruling, but now the South has arrived at another defining moment. Today the South has emerged as a dynamic region, growing in jobs and people, in political as well as economic prowess. To sustain and advance its economic and civic dynamism, the region needs public schools that educate all young people well. Public schools educate nearly nine out of 10 Southern children. All citizens, whether or not they have children in the public schools, have a vital stake in strong public education. Most of the people whom Southerners rely upon to fix computers, fly airplanes, treat illnesses, and police the streets are products of public schools. So are most of the citizens who serve on juries, vote in elections, occupy government offices, and live next door. If public education continues down its current path, leaving many young people by the wayside, tomorrow's South will have too few competent workers, a less informed citizenry, and more people living in alienation, in poverty, and in prison. In the long run, the South will pay a heavy price such as companies unable to find managers, and isoIn light of the economic and demographic changes already in motion, the future well-being of both the southern economy and its democratic society is at stake.