Additionally, teachers’ salaries were more competitive in wealthier schools, so many of the best teachers left for wealthier districts. Due to these conditions, many schools in the late 1990s (like McClenton in the novel) continued to be racially and socioeconomically homogenous. While American schools became officially desegregated in 1954, this resulted in many wealthy white Americans leaving cities for the suburbs or opting to send their children to private schools, while poorer urban districts primarily made up of minority students had few resources. McClenton Middle School, which protagonist Maleeka attends, reflects the state of many urban school districts across the country, which results from decades-long demographic shifts and government policies. The Skin I’m In takes place in an unnamed city in the late 1990s, and Flake makes a few references to McClenton being an “inner-city” school.
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