End of desegregation offers lessons for current education reformers
After half a century, America’s efforts to end segregation seem to be winding down. In the years after Brown v. Board of Education, 755 school districts were under desegregation orders. A new Stanford study reports that as of 2009, that number had dropped to as few as 268. (An additional 153 small districts with fewer than 2,000 students weren’t included in the study, and may also still have outstanding desegregation orders.)
The study is the first to take a comprehensive look at whether court-ordered busing successfully ended the legacy of Jim Crow in public education, and it suggests a mission that is far from accomplished. On average, those districts that stopped forcing schools to mix students by race have seen a gradual but steady–and significant–return of racial isolation, especially at the elementary level.
Students at the Charles Drew Charter School in Atlanta, where school officials have sought to create a diverse student body in a city where schools have largely re-segregated. (Photo by Sarah Garland)It’s unclear what effect school “re-segregation” will have on minority achievement, though a large body of research suggests it certainly won’t help efforts to improve test scores, graduation rates, and college entry levels for blacks and Hispanics, a growing share of the U.S. population. But the retreat from desegregation also
The study is the first to take a comprehensive look at whether court-ordered busing successfully ended the legacy of Jim Crow in public education, and it suggests a mission that is far from accomplished. On average, those districts that stopped forcing schools to mix students by race have seen a gradual but steady–and significant–return of racial isolation, especially at the elementary level.
Students at the Charles Drew Charter School in Atlanta, where school officials have sought to create a diverse student body in a city where schools have largely re-segregated. (Photo by Sarah Garland)