What School Integration Teaches Kids (and Adults, Too)
Jay Matthews reports on a fascinating school integration debate in suburban Fairfax County, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. Teenagers in the affluent, predominantly white neighborhood of Wakefield Chapel are currently zoned to attend the unusually diverse Annandale High School, which is 49 percent low-income and about one-third Latino, 29 percent white, 23 percent Asian, and 15 percent black. The high school has a well-regarded International Baccalaureate program and scores highly on the Washington Post's Challenge Index, a ranking of how effective high schools across the country are at enrolling all students--not just those from privileged families--in college-level courses.
But Annandale High is now overcrowded, and Fairfax's response has been to rezone the wealthy Wakefield Chapel neighborhood to Woodson High, which is two-thirds white and just 6 percent low-income.
This decision has opened up an interesting rift in the neighborhood. Parents of younger kids --those currently attending whiter, wealthier elementary and middle schools--are in favor of the switch to Woodson. They assume that their own already-privileged children will get more out of a high school experience learning alongside similar
