Since 1990, over 40% of schools have closed in the St. Louis Public Schools District (SLPSD) because of steep enrollment decline. Tracing educational trends over 30 years, I examine when, where, and why K-12 public schools closed in St. Louis in order to highlight the social conditions and policy decisions that contract contemporary urban…

The decades-long resistance to federally imposed school desegregation entered a new phase at the turn of the new century, when federal courts stopped pushing racial balance as a remedy for past segregation, adopting in its place a color-blind approach in judging local school districts' assignment plans. Using data that span 1998 to 2016 from North…

This report shows that the segregation of Black students has increased in almost every region of the nation, and that Black students in many of nation's largest school districts have little access to or interaction with White, Asian or middle-class students. The report documents substantial Black enrollment in suburban schools, but high levels of…

This paper explores the 2013 merger between Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools. The paper looks at this merger through a historical and philosophical perspective. At the core of the paper, it analyzes the effects of the merger and what role leadership and community opposition played in shaping its legacy.

We examine the impact of charter schools on school integration in the Little Rock, Arkansas metropolitan area. We find that charters are less likely to be hyper-segregated than traditional public schools (TPS), but TPS have compositions more closely reflecting the region. However, differences in each case are slight. Using student-level data to…

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…

The United States Congress' Southern Congressional Delegation promulgated the Declaration of Constitutional Principles, popularly known as the Southern Manifesto, on March 12, 1956. The Southern Manifesto was the South's primary means to effectively delay implementation of public school desegregation as ordered by the United States Supreme Court…

As of summer 2012, there are 31 interdistrict magnet schools in the Greater Hartford region of Connecticut, including those at The Learning Corridor (a 14-acre compound with roughly 1,570 students in attendance among an elementary, middle, and two high schools), enrolling about 13,000 students and supported by a mix of state, local, and…

This report analyzes the data on changes in patterns of racial segregation and their education consequences over a quarter century, from l987 to 2012. It examines a major transition in the racial and ethnic composition of Connecticut and the changes in integration and segregation in the schools of the state and its urban communities and it…

In 1982 civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson criticized President Ronald Reagan's attacks on busing to coerce school desegregation for targeting "not the bus, but us." Two decades later, the United States Supreme Court ended the thirty-two-year-old Charlotte, North Carolina, plan which had launched the era of court-ordered busing…

The statistic presented in this article demonstrate the continuance of the systematic elimination, displacement, and demotion of Black educators as a result of school desegregation. (Author/GC)

Describes the difficulties encountered by Virginia localities in marketing their school bonds in years immediately following the "Brown" decision (1954-1959). (GC)

To determine the effects of busing, this study compared 1971/72 enrollments in the public schools in Kalamazoo and Pontiac, Michigan with enrollment size and trends between 1966 and 1970. (Author/SF)

The purpose of this study was to determine what additional costs are associated with desegregation efforts in Texas public school systems. A questionnaire was developed around seven main areas: 1) student membership and professional staff data, 2) additional personnel costs, 3) facility costs, 4) student transportation costs, 5) instructional…