Integration and Diversity

Research in this section explores the impacts and benefits of racial and ethnic diversity in education, as well as resegregation trends and remedies in our nation's public schools.

Education's 'Perfect Storm?' Racial Resegregation, "High Stakes" Testing, & School Inequities: The Case of North Carolina

Research commissioned for the conference The Resegregation of Southern Schools. Among its lessons, The Perfect Storm illustrates that converging forces can sometimes overwhelm even seasoned professionals who focus on discrete threats rather than their combined power.

The Impact of Student Composition on Academic Achievement in Southern High Schools

Research commissioned for the conference The Resegregation of Southern Schools. The issue of school segregation came to the forefront of education policy when, in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the de jure segregation of schools was unconstitutional because it was "inherently unequal" (Orfield, 2001, p. 10). Subsequent litigation and federal legislation, primarily during the 1960s and 1970s, lead to increased racial integration, especially in the South.

Trends in Public School Segregation in the South, 1987-2000

Our analyses show that segregation has remained at very high levels in most Southern states and districts, and has even increased by large amounts in many others. There does appear to be an important trend toward resegregation, but that trend is not uniform across the South. We also find that some trends are masked from one measure of segregation, but revealed by others, stressing the importance of the use of multiple measures and the examination of local situations.

Integrating Neighborhoods, Segregating Schools: The Retreat from School Desegregation, 1990 - 2000

Paper prepared for the conference on the Resegregation of Southern Schools.

The Academic Consequences of Desegregation and Segregation: Evidence from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools

This paper brings new evidence to bear on the question of whether desegregated schooling, in fact, improves the academic outcomes of those who experience it. Using survey data from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) collected in 1997, it examines the academic consequences of attending segregated and desegregated schools; how second generation segregation, in the form of tracking, diminished the potential benefits of school-level desegregation; why desegregated learning environments are superior to segregated ones; and, given the district’s new neighborhood schools pupil assignment plan, what do preliminary data suggest about racial and social class isolation and concentration in CMS’s 140 schools.

Race in American Public Schools: Rapidly Resegregating School Districts

Patterns of segregation by race are strongly linked to segregation by poverty, and poverty concentrations are strongly linked to unequal opportunities and outcomes. Since public schools are the institution intended to create a common preparation for citizens in an increasingly multiracial society, this inequality can have serious consequences. Given that the largest school districts in this country (enrollment greater than 25,000) service one-third of all school-aged children, it is important to understand at a district level the ways in which school segregation, race, and poverty are intersecting and how they impact these students’ lives. In our analysis we focus on two important components, race and segregation.

A Public Laboratory Dewey Barely Imagined: The Emerging Model of School Governance and Legal Reform

Public school reform raises the prospect of a broader redefinition of our very democracy.