Education Week: Scholars Make Case for Integration: A study presented on Capitol Hill last week provides new evidence that black and Latino children who attend elementary schools with high concentrations of minority students fare worse academically than students being taught in whiter, or more integrated, school settings.
The paper, written by two researchers from Teachers College, Columbia University, was among several studies presented at a June 12 briefing organized by three universities to marshal new ideas and evidence for integrating K-12 schools.
The school desegregation movement suffered the largest in a series of setbacks in 2007, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in cases involving the Seattle and Jefferson County, Ky., districts to limit the use of race in pupil-assignment plans. ('Race Plans Get Rough Reception,' December 13, 2006.) But advocates and researchers at the meeting implored federal lawmakers to take a stronger hand in promoting integrated schools and gave evidence for other proposals, including cross-district choice plans and income-based integration policies, that might achieve the same ends within the confines of the Supreme Court ruling.
