School assignment policies are a key lever to increase access to high performing schools and to promote racial and socioeconomic integration. For over 50 years, the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) has bussed students of color from Boston, Massachusetts to relatively wealthier and predominantly White suburbs. Using a…

At a time when democracy is fractured along the fault lines of race, ethnicity, and religion, and when social mobility has stalled, high-quality integrated public schools could take us on a better path forward. Racial and socioeconomic school integration has proven to be one of the most powerful strategies known to educators to improve the lives…

The widespread assumption in the United States today is that traditional urban public schools are failing. Market-based solutions, particularly charter schools, are seen as the way to improve urban education. How then can we understand a large urban district where educational actors have furthered a locally popular alternative vision? This article…

Background/Context: Prior research on "Milliken v. Bradley" focuses on the failure of this case to implement interdistrict busing in the highly segregated Detroit schools. Much of this work focuses explicitly on desegregation, rather than on equity and addressing individual, systemic, institutional, and organizational challenges that may…

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to: (a) analyze the insights and experiences of the 1st African American student-athlete (in basketball) at a prominent predominantly White institution in the Deep South as well as the later insights and experiences of his sons at the same university; and (b) to present a counterstory to the dominant…

This paper examines students' evolving cross-group relationships in a comprehensive high school in Baltimore County, Maryland, USA, between 1950 and 2000. The findings of this research, situated at the intersections of two lenses of inquiry: oral historical analysis and critical studies, uncover both the power of students accustomed to integrated…

The Supreme Court declared in 1954 that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Into the 1970s, urban education reform focused predominantly on making sure that African American students had the opportunity to attend school with their white peers. Now, however, most reformers take as a given that the typical low-income minority…

For nearly four decades, magnet schools have been an important element of American public school education. They have offered innovative programs not generally available in local schools and provided opportunities for students to learn in racially diverse environments. Magnet schools have been particularly important in districts that are trying to…

In this update of the integration efforts of the Riverside Unified School District, it is shown that the district continues to be committed to the integration of the staff. It is also committed to search for minority heritage staff. Along with staffing changes, there have been major program developments such as finding and using ethnic oriented…

The Riverside Schools in California desegregated gradually, beginning in 1965. Three segregated minority schools were closed and the students bused to white neighborhoods. This evaluation report analyzes longitudinally and in cross-section the achievement of students in desegregated schools. In the former analysis, pupils who were in grades K-3…

This report is part of the evaluation of a program--Metropolitan Council on Educational Opportunity (METCO)-- for the academic year 1968-69, which provides screening, placement, and busing services for Negro children from predominantly Negro schools in Boston to predominantly white schools in the surrounding suburbs. In this evaluation, METCO and…

Seven papers commissioned by the National Institute of Education in order to clarify the state of recent knowledge about the effects of school desegregation on the academic achievement of black students are contained in this report. The papers, which analyze 19 "core" empirical studies on this topic, include: (1) "What Have Black Children Gained…

In this updated report on the Riverside Unified School District, the district continues with its integration efforts including major program development. Over the three years of integration, performance of all children from the three major race groups has improved. In the primary grades, there has been a general trend toward higher reading…

The evidence regarding the effects of school desegregation upon black student achievement remains inconsistent and inadequate, despite the production of a large number of empirical investigations. It is proposed that social scientists abandon traditional research models of the school desegration process, and instead attempt to observe and…