|
Having just celebrated the fiftieth anniversary
of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, our
nation finds itself at a critical crossroad. For much of the
past fifty years, parents of minority children and community
leaders have repeatedly petitioned courts throughout the country,
demanding that the judiciary give life and meaning to Brown
by ordering recalcitrant school districts to dismantle their
racially segregated school systems, often referred to as court-ordered
desegregation. In the face of great resistance, and some times
even violence, these leaders have valiantly insisted that
their children’s schools act to eliminate the stubborn,
persistent vestiges of racial discrimination and that we,
as a country, live up to our nation’s highest ideals
of equality for all.
Therein lies the purpose of this manual. It
is designed to help you—parents, students, community
activists, and school board members, administrators, and attorneys—navigate
through the maze of legal, political, and policy issues related
to the promotion of racial and ethnic diversity in public
schools. You will find a brief legal history of what has often
been called “court-ordered” school desegregation
cases, from Brown through the present. Next, you will learn
about the disturbing and perhaps surprising trend toward school
resegregation, as well as its causes, patterns, and staggering
impact, particularly on urban school systems and the students
who attend them. You will also find information about the
rich, ever-expanding body of research regarding the many benefits
of racially and ethnically diverse schools as well as the
harms of racial isolation. With the history, statistics, and
research as context, we then turn to the practical question
of what you can do to promote integration in the schools in
your own community. To give you a sense of how other school
systems have effectively tackled the problem, we begin this
part of the manual with short descriptions of various hypothetical
integrative student assignment strategies. We then review
and discuss the legal considerations at work when school districts
elect to pursue these kinds of voluntary methods of achieving
racial and ethnic diversity. We conclude with some suggestions
for concrete steps that you can take make a difference by
encouraging public schools in your community to promote racial
integration and implement policies and practices that foster
positive, integrated learning environments for all students.
Voluntary
School Integration Manual
Voluntary
School Integration Manual (b/w)
Addendum
|
