Racial Desegregation in America's Schools

Racial Desegregation in America's Schools

"America must realize that purging the taint of racism requires more than color blindness and race neutrality in a free market. Color-blind remedies are also blind to the historical fact that the law sanctioned racial oppression for centuries. Because blacks suffered and whites prospered as classes, any realistic remedy must also be class-based. . . . America must reject out of hand any policies that tend to separate the races. (Heaney, 1985) Since 1974, forced desegregation of schools has been discussed in order to improve test scores in inner city school districts. Today, this issue is being addressed again with the results arising from the no child left behind legislation enacted during the Bush administration. The difference in opinion in root causes has brought up much debate and suggestion of changes. These changes range from forced busing to trying to change values within the family culture. When examining the facts, opinions, and potential impacts, my conclusion is that forced busing is not only the wrong answer, but is constitutionally unjust.

During a time of great debate on whether school integration should be forced, or voluntary, Minnesota chose its voluntary integration rules over an alternative proposal that mandated racial integration in all public schools. Minnesota decided that it was up to the parents to decide where their children went to school. They would not deny a parent's right to integrate, but would not force the schools to do this. At the time, the Minnesota Supreme Court thought that it would be unconstitutional to force integration of schools based on race. (Powell, 2001)

While Minnesota was required to report on statistics of race, they were not forced to do anything about the statistics. Because of this, schools are now more segregated than they were all the decades before. (Orfield, 2007) Minnesota is moving away from providing a racially integrated education for all of its students. The root cause of the racial segregation is in debate, as well as the solution and its consequences. "Minnesota's experience suggests that if educational equity for all students is the goal, there must be a compelling interest in proactively addressing racial isolation in schools and that states must mandate, rather than just encourage, integration. Choice-based integration plans will only continue the national trend of desegregation of our nation's schools." (Orfield, 2007)

After the 2009 test scores for Minnesota were released, the disparities of test scores between urban inner city schools, and suburban, less diverse schools, were staggering. It found that schools that had were located in low income, diverse cities had test scores that were 29% lower than schools with little diversity and higher income (Star Tribune, 2009). While the test scores are black and white, the root cause seems to be gray. One theory is that student scores reflect the slow racial segregation of the school districts. " Today demographic trends show that fewer white students attend white-segregated schools, a growing number of blacks and Latino students attend minority-segregated schools--a fact that is not accounted for by increasing racial diversity. Despite this increasing diversity, the average white student attends a school that is 77% white." (Orfield, 2007) Does this mean that desegregation of schools will be the answer? The proponents for school desegregation say yes. There are 4 major reasons integration should be forced 1) erosion of the inner city tax base. It is a fact that the less fortunate families live in inner city areas. Over the last ten years, this has caused erosion of the tax base, which has provided the schools with less money to run on. (UMN Publications) This has eroded the level of education in the inner cities, which happen to be more diverse. If student integration were forced, it would increase the tax base in the school districts with low performance by giving them more dollars to hire more teachers and upgrade technology. 2) The refusal of teachers to teach in the inner cities. Inner city schools are not the first place teachers want to go after completing college. They have more documented violence and lower graduation rates than suburban schools. (Surgeon General) This can lead to the less desirable teachers working at urban, diverse schools because these schools don't get the "cream of the crop" for their workforce. If schools were integrated, the diversity of a school could not be a factor for consideration during the interview process. In theory, all schools would have the same level of talent in the teaching arena. 3) No child left behind impact on inner city, diverse schools. While the "No Child Left Behind Act" has had it's impact on all schools, the impact to diverse schools seems to be worse.