Kentucky Legislation Would Resegregate Schools against the Will of Local Families
The Kentucky legislature is taking aim at school integration. If its new legislation succeeds, it will degrade the educational opportunities available to thousands of kids and, ironically, move in the opposite direction of the stated positions of the new Secretary of Education.
After the Supreme Court held in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle that Jefferson County's voluntary integration plan was unconstitutional, the school board reworked its student assignment plan. The problem with the old plan, according to the Court, was that the district had not shown that the consideration of race was necessary to achieve integration. At least in Jefferson County, maybe the Court was right. The district came up with a new plan that relies on race-nuetral factors and appears to work relatively well. And like the old plan, it remains popular among families there. As Barrett Holmes Pitner reports, "[a]s of 2011, 89 percent of Jefferson County residents supported the school system’s desegregation policies (PDF)."
A constitutional plan, a popular plan, local prerogative, and the benefits of integration apparently are not enough to dissuade those in the state legislature from monkeying with education policy. Kentucky House Bill 151 would "provide that those residing within the shortest travel distance to a school be given first priority in cases where the capacity of the school may be exceeded; permit a child to attend a school other than the one closest with permission of the district." The logical inconsistency of this legislation with other education policies and research findings is astounding.
Both of Kentucky's U.S. Senators just voted in favor of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. DeVos stands on two major policy positions: more local control and more student choice. Just this week, DeVos told the Council of the Education Law Prof Blog: