The “busing” of students to racially integrate schools following Brown was about the constitutional rights of black students, but the story of “busing” has been told and retold as a story about the feelings and opinions of white people. ![]() In the final pre-publication stages for my recent book Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation, the copyeditor e-mailed to ask me, “Do you really want to refer to ‘busing’ in quotation marks throughout the book?” I opted to keep “busing” in scare quotes to emphasize that this term developed in the years after Brown as a selective way to label and oppose school desegregation. In order to think about how school integration can work in 2016 and beyond, it is important to understand the history of resistance to school desegregation. ![]() While class-based school integration efforts are promising, much of the optimism for these plans is based on a sketchy understanding of the resistance to racial and socioeconomic integration since the Supreme Court’s Brown v. These socioeconomic integration plans are compelling because they are pragmatic and offer an end-run around the Supreme Court’s ruling against racial integration plans in Parents Involved in Community Schools (2007). “We should support innovative, voluntary locally-driven efforts to promote socioeconomic diversity in schools.” King has discussed school integration repeatedly this year and the issue is being debated in policy circles and publicly in a way not seen in nearly 40 years. “Research shows that one of the best things we can do for all children-black or white, rich or poor-is give them a chance to attend strong, socioeconomically diverse schools,” King said in January. Secretary of Education, John King encouraged school districts to take steps towards class-based integration.
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