Harvard report points to resegregation of schools (plus mhking on NPR!)

Harvard Civil Rights Project ^ | 8.13.02

[mhking]

Cambridge, MA     It has been almost 50 years since the initial Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling banning segregation and more than a decade into a period in which the U.S. Supreme Court has authorized termination of desegregation orders. These plans are being dissolved by court orders even in some communities that want to maintain them; in addition, some federal courts are forbidding even voluntary desegregation plans.

While the 2000 Census results illustrate that the United States has more racial and ethnic diversity than ever before, school data from the year 2000-2001 collected by the U.S. Department of Education indicates that school children are largely isolated from this growing diversity. The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University's new report, Race in American Public Schools: Rapidly Resegregating School Districts, disaggregates national data to the district level in order to examine the patterns of segregation as they affect our nation's youth.

The report focuses on segregation levels in moderate to large sized public school districts. Based on 2000 data, the analysis concentrated on the 239 school districts with total enrollment greater than 25,000. This trend is significant and clear: virtually all school districts analyzed are becoming more segregated for black and Latino students.

Some of the key findings of this study which examines segregation trends in large school districts across the country are:

• Many of the districts experiencing the highest black-white resegregation are also resegregating in Latino exposure to whites.
  
  
• Districts that show the least resegregation in black-white exposure are mostly in the South, likely due to lingering effects of desegregation plans in these districts where the plans have been dissolved and the continuing impacts of plans still in place.
  
  

• Despite an increasingly racially diverse public school enrollment, white students in over one-third of the districts analyzed became more isolated from black and/or Latino students, from 1986-2000.
  
  
• Blacks are the most isolated from whites in districts with either no desegregation plans or where the courts rejected a city-suburban desegregation. The most integrated districts for black students are in districts with city-suburban plans, even though all of these districts have since been declared unitary and show a trend toward resegregating.

[ChadGore]

[Illbay]

I'm scheduled to be on Tavis Smiley's NPR show tomorrow (Wednesday) morning to discuss this thing.

COOL!

I catch that show from time to time, since I listen most days to our local "all jazz" radio station which happens to be KTSU-FM, the "voice" of Texas Southern University here in Houston (I may not agree with the editorial policies of the school or the station, but they play some "kick-*ss" Jazz and R&B!)

I'll be sure to listen and give you my critique!

[Eva]

I'm sorry, but any report or study by Harvard is suspect. I read the Harvard Arsenic study on the web, while it was still a work in progress. The finished study deleted all the information that did not fit the desired result. My guess is that this is probably typical of anything that Harvard puts out.

[Illbay]

...you will find plenty of homogeneous bedroom communities nationwide.

You'd never know it from where I live, in west suburban Houston. My neighborhood is straight-line middle class, homes in the $100K to $200K range (and bear in mind the housing costs on the whole are cheaper in Houston than any other major metropolitan area in the country), and we've got white folks like us, black, hispanic, asian, middle eastern, and even AFRICAN africans living here.

Most folks are white collar or professional.

[mfreddy]

I have lived in Kansas City, MO for over 25 years and was educated in a suburban school district, from which I graduated in 1984. I've followed the Kansas City School district's problems for the last 15 to 20 years, mainly because they get a lot of ink in the KC Star, and I'm a newspaper junkie. What I find the most interesting here in KC is that the black leadership has spent more than the last decade trying to undo desegregation. The KCMO school district has even gone as far as to create 3 schools that are centered around an "african American theme" for their overall curriculum. What white children will be either welcome OR wanted there?

For the past decade, the district has also had tremendous difficulty retaining (and even finding) superintendants. This is in my opinion, due to the fact that instead of finding the best "man" for the job, they are consumed with finding the best "black man". I would imagine that among high-level educators in the midwest, the word has also spread that the board also needs a lap dog that will not interfere with their agenda.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for black conservative activists. Guys like Jessie Lee Peterson (is that right?) want to help create a community and a society that is colorblind. They want people to have pride in their family, community, and country. Meanwhile, you've got the racebaiters like Jackson, Sharpton, and Umfume that have perfected not only class warfare but race warfare that try to cut them off at the knees.

The worst aspect of the majority of their argument is that it is classic class warfare, presented under the guise of "racial discrimination". This is done because racial discrimination is the sacred cow that no one dares criticize.

[spintreebob]

Beg to disagree. As I stated previously, schools purposely bus "special needs" kids from integrated neighborhoods to distant schools that have special programs for the "special needs" kids. The schools intentionally do this because they get more money that way. The federal and state subsidy programs have complicated formulas to get the money. The school districts "game the system" to get the money.

Of course, "bilingual ed" is the biggest special need.

[Lewite]

The black leaders of the Birmingham Board of egikatun send their chillren to private schools. Just like the liberal scum Kennedys and Clintons. Intergration is for your children not theirs.

[valkyrieanne]

Yes, they probably do. Everybody has a *right* to pick any school option they want for their children. If they can't afford it, that's another story.

[VOA]

In case you (or other posters/lurkers) are interested in knowing more about Jessie
Lee Peterson, his organization's website is at:

http://www.bondinfo.org/

[The Electrician]

At no point does Harvard measure the degree to which black and Hispanic students are attending school together and call that "integration." And, according to the Harvard study, Asians apparently play no role in integration at all. You can look it up!

You're right on target - I noticed the same thing. It is obvious that the report was written by racist social engineers who do not consider that there is any "diversity value" gained by mixing ethnic Hispanics or Asians with blacks, or vice versa. It would be laughable if it weren't such a travesty. The students are merely figures on a balance sheet to these social engineers - but it is the students of all races who have suffered from such meddling. The original poster's statements about the need for all students to choose their schooling are IMHO the right approach.