WA Post: Forced busing didn't fail. Desegration helped improve our schools.

[pnwmom]

By George Theoharis

George Theoharis is a professor and a chair in the School of Education at Syracuse University.
October 23, 2015

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/23/forced-busing-didnt-fail-desegregation-is-the-best-way-to-improve-our-schools/?utm_term=.357af70989fc

Public radio’s “This American Life” reminded us of this reality in a two-part report this summer, called “The Problem We All Live With.” The program noted that, despite declarations that busing to desegregate schools failed in the 1970s and 1980s, that era actually saw significant improvement in educational equity. When the National Assessment of Educational Progress began in the early 1970s, there was a 53-point gap in reading scores between black and white 17-year-olds. That chasm narrowed to 20 points by 1988. During that time, every region of the country except the Northeast saw steady gains in school integration. In the South in 1968, 78 percent of black children attended schools with almost exclusively minority students; by 1988, only 24 percent did. In the West during that period, the figure declined from 51 percent to 29 percent.

But since 1988, when education policy shifted away from desegregation efforts, the reading test score gap has grown — to 26 points in 2012 — with segregated schooling increasing in every region of the country.

Research has shown that integration is a critical factor in narrowing the achievement gap. In a 2010 research review, Harvard University’s Susan Eaton noted that racial segregation in schools has such a severe impact on the test score-gap that it outweighs the positive effects of a higher family income for minority students. Further, a 2010 study of students’ improvements in math found that the level of integration was the only school characteristic (vs. safety and community commitment to math) that significantly affected students’ learning growth.

In an analysis of the landmark 1966 “Coleman Report,” researchers Geoffrey Borman and Maritza Dowling determined that both the racial and socioeconomic makeups of a school are 1¾-times more important in determining a student’s educational outcomes than the student’s own race, ethnicity or social class.

[still_one]

1. Why Busing Didn't End School Segregation

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/10/06/496411024/why-busing-didnt-end-school-segregation

Audie Cornish

"So why did busing fail?
A couple things happen that make it difficult to sustain busing programs into the '80s and '90s.
One is the tremendous amount of white flight that happens in cities like Boston, so there just simply aren't enough white students to go around to have meaningful school desegregation. This is true in Chicago, in Los Angeles, in New York.
The other thing that happens is busing placed a tremendous burden on black students and on students of color. In most cases, they were the ones that were asked to travel to the suburbs, travel sometimes to hostile neighborhoods. For many parents, that simply isn't worth it after a number of years.
If not busing, what were the other ways that schools tried to desegregate in modern times?
There were a couple of popular plans. One would be magnet schools — trying to funnel resources into schools primarily in communities of color that would attract white students back to those schools. Those have received different amounts of success in different communities, but it's been a program that has some merit and has been popular for good reason.
Another would be to simply redraw zoning lines. I think one of the reasons that busing got so much attention is that it seemed very inconvenient. They're talking about busing kids a half-hour out of the city. In many communities, if you simply redraw the zoning lines you can accomplish school desegregation. It's still tremendously controversial, but it can still produce meaningful school integration in places that have tried it.
For schools that have tried rezoning, taking race into account has led to trouble with the law.
Exactly — there are two issues. One, the Supreme Court has consistently handed down decisions that say that race can't be the primary factor in drawing these school zoning lines. The court does not want to see race be the deciding factor in these school desegregation issues.
The other factor is simply a matter of political will and how much white parents will go for it. Unfortunately, it's the case that across the country, white parents simply don't want to send their kids to schools with large numbers of African-American or Latino students — even if they consider themselves to be liberal in theory, or in the abstract, they are in favor of integration.
When push comes to shove ... they oppose any sort of meaningful school integration.
Can you elaborate? What does that mean and what does that look like?
I think one of the challenges of what the Obama Administration is proposing is the voluntary aspect. I think voluntary is great, but the number of school districts that are willing to take this on? I think the Century Foundation has been doing some research on this. It's something like 1 percent of school districts in the country are attempting these programs. I don't think that's going to scale much beyond 5 percent or 10 percent unless there is real political will put behind it.
I think it's great to offer some cash incentives and encourage people to take this on voluntarily. But the history of the last five decades is that school districts simply won't do this voluntarily and that if we want to see meaningful school desegregation — whether that is in terms of socioeconomic status or race — it has to be encouraged"

[pnwmom]

2. Thanks for the other point of view. n/t

[still_one]

4. That is what I appreciate about you pnwmom, you present issues that allow us to think out of the box

and more than once you have got me to reconsider, and change my initial position on certain things.


Thank-you

[pnwmom]

7. And you have the same effect on me, still_one.

[still_one]

9. ..........................................

[Hoyt]

3. Busing was a start to get Black kids out of separate, and unequal, schools.

It served a worthy purpose initially, Sen Harris is a good example. It never should have been necessary, but white wingers you know. . . . . .

[still_one]

5. You are right Hoyt, but still it was a mixed record of success

Y

[Hoyt]

6. Agree there were better ways, but something had to be done. Black schools

we’re barely funded by the white wingers in control in a lot of areas.

[pnwmom]

8. Right. And because of the desegregation push some districts made permanent changes that helped.

For example, her city of Berkeley CA redrew its school district lines effectively. The city has a big hill, and the weathier people live higher on the hill. So they drew the school lines vertically down the hill and into the valley. So every elementary school automatically includes children from the top of the hill on down. And it works.

https://www.berkeleyschools.net/2018/12/50th-anniversary-of-berkeleys-pioneering-busing-plan-for-school-integration/

[Hoyt]

12. Great example. While it never should have been necessary, busing created that kind of change.

The predominantly Black schools in the South were little better than the immigrant detention centers/camps of today. Not sure how bad it was in California.

[cbelle1039]

10. Some forget that busing was not 100% acceptable to black families.

Many feared for the safety of their children and didn't like the fact that their children. It wasn't a wholly appreciated remedy. to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

[pnwmom]

11. Nothing is 100% acceptable to 100% of anyone. n/t

[Hoyt]

13. Apparently, Harris appreciated it.