Sheff vs Oniel is useless...The only thing that happen was suburban schools got saddled with inner cities kids. When it happened my gf (at the time, not Mrs. DeplorableAmerican1776) and her kids had to go from a neighborhood school to a school in a majority black suburb (Bloomfield). We looked at a Christian school. A few months later she got transferred to Maine. Thank goodness.
Previous to busing due to Sheff, was something called *Project Concern*; maybe that is what you are talking about. I was teaching in Newington, during that time; minority [mostly black kids] were bused into suburbia. As I recall, the bused kids were grades below the ‘burb kids. Getting them to sit still was a challenge, aside from the lack of simple social skills. At the end of the day, whatever skills they obtained during their 6 hour stay, were lost b/c the went right back into their jungle environment.
I doubt what benefit it all was, except some social engineers feeling good about themselves for a while.
The cultural divide was wide and deep; and I wondered if it didn’t do more harm than good; b/c the bused kids saw/observed families with a mother & father; classmates with nicely kept hair and clothing; vacations spent traveling with family, nice neat homes with big yard and crime free neighborhoods, etc. That had to have had some influence on the bused children.
Impressing the urban children that they were from the *other side of the tracks*. Sometimes when you don’t *know* something...you learn to live with your lot in life. If Project Concern did any good, it opened urban kids eyes, to what could be, if personal effort was made.