One of Memphis City Schools five picks for the 21-member Norris-Todd transition planning commission, University of Memphis law professor Daniel Kiel, has published three law articles that make for very interesting reading. He's perhaps best known here for "Exploded Dream: Desegregation in the Memphis City Schools," which looks at how racist obstructionists forced the courts to impose remedies and how those legally-constructed remedies (forced busing, for one example), whatever their intentions, may have led to the erosion of both school quality and truly diverse school populations.
Kiel, a somewhat recent MCS grad (1990s) and Harvard Law School alum, has now also turned his gaze at the efforts by the Louisville-Jefferson County (Ky.) system to emphasize diversity in its school-zoning policies, and the transformation of the New Orleans public education by charter schools post-Katrina.
After the jump, find the links to the stories, with the abstract descriptions from Social Science Research Network. I'm planning to read them all myself (re-read the Memphis one again) and at some point will post about some of the key issues contained in them.
Kiel, a somewhat recent MCS grad (1990s) and Harvard Law School alum, has now also turned his gaze at the efforts by the Louisville-Jefferson County (Ky.) system to emphasize diversity in its school-zoning policies, and the transformation of the New Orleans public education by charter schools post-Katrina.
After the jump, find the links to the stories, with the abstract descriptions from Social Science Research Network. I'm planning to read them all myself (re-read the Memphis one again) and at some point will post about some of the key issues contained in them.
Louisville-Jefferson County:
In the wake of the most important public schools case in decades, Parents Involved in Community Schools (PICS), the future of diversity in public schools is in doubt. This period of uncertainty comes at a moment when parents, educators, and employers are demanding high quality schools that prepare students for an increasingly globalized world. Justice Anthony Kennedy, in his PICS concurrence, recognized this and challenged districts to continue the important work of bringing different students together without resorting to unconstitutional means. Filling the void between what is essential to public education and what is constitutionally permissible after PICS, the public schools of Jefferson County (Louisville), Kentucky, one of the districts rebuked in PICS, have accepted Justice Kennedy's dare by crafting a nuanced and race-conscious student assignment plan aimed at promoting broadly-defined diversity and increasing the quality of education across the district.
The article argues two distinct points. First, it argues that the new plan is a constitutionally permissible response to PICS. Second, it argues that the new plan's broadening of both the definition of diversity and the mission of a school district represents the beginning of a new post-Brown era that is responsive to the realities of public education in the 21st century. By tethering its analysis of PICS - and specifically of Justice Kennedy's concurrence - to a specific response to that decision, the article provides a detailed analysis of the new constitutional framework in this area. Ultimately, the article argues that because it is both constitutional and educationally-relevant, the new plan represents the future of integration for any district willing to make the commitment to providing the educational benefits of diverse public schools to its students.
New Orleans
Presented as part of a program for the AALS Education Law section entitled "Five Years After Katrina: Access to Education," this article places post-Katrina education in New Orleans directly in the line of education reform triggered by the decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The article agues that post-Katrina New Orleans represents the pursuit of the same goal pursued by the Brown plaintiffs: improved access to educational opportunities for students, most of whom are African American, not being equitably served by the status quo. The article then frames these two moments - the Brown decision and Hurricane Katrina - as inertia-jarring events in the history of New Orleans public education and compares the responses to these two hurricanes (one figurative, one literal).
Connecting the post-Brown and post-Katrina eras, the article focuses on themes common to both - state intervention in New Orleans schools and an increase in choice for students - and details the ways in which the response to one has shaped the response to the other. Looking at ways the city has learned from the Brown era and the ways in which the city seems on a path to repeating some of that era's mistakes, the article argues that success or failure in post-Katrina public education will be impacted by the city's post-Brown experience. Specifically, although the motivation behind state intervention is clearly different than it was during the Brown era, there remains skepticism about the role of the state in providing for New Orleans public schools.
Further, despite having made choice far more widely available after Katrina than it had been before, the potential for a return to a stratified system of schools - and the class - and race-based resentment such stratification engenders - could threaten the public support New Orleans public schools currently enjoy.
The progress of public education in New Orleans is important beyond the boundaries of Orleans Parish. Post-Katrina New Orleans serves as the pivotal proving ground for the use of increased choice and charter schools to provide more equitable access to quality education. With 61% of New Orleans public school students enrolled in 51 charter schools (both numbers by far the highest in the nation), post-Katrina New Orleans represents an opportunity for the choice movement to demonstrate success on a large scale. Success in New Orleans will lead to broader choice in struggling urban districts across the country. Conversely, failure to deliver improved access to quality education will reverse the current upward trajectory of the choice movement.
Given the stakes, the New Orleans public schools are likely to be among the most scrupulously evaluated in the coming years. However, as scholars and advocates begin evaluating this reform effort and continuing to shape the future of public education in New Orleans, it is imperative to recognize the ways in which the story that precedes the hurricane shapes and impacts the story unfolding in its wake. This article serves will help ensure that happens.
If reformers in New Orleans are able to focus on the goal of increasing access to quality educational opportunities, then the chance created out of the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina will not be wasted. It would be beautifully ironic if, thanks in part to a hurricane, the schools in the city whose segregated railcars gave us Plessy v. Ferguson could finally deliver on that elusive promise of Brown to provide more equitable access to quality educational opportunities.
Memphis
This article is a comprehensive look at the story of school desegregation in the Memphis City Schools. Beginning with the Brown v. Board of Education decision that ended segregation in schooling, the article traces the steps taken in Memphis to put the Brown decision into practice. Following a period of inaction and delay, the Memphis City Schools experienced a relatively peaceful transition as token desegregation took place in the early part of the 1960s. However, after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis in 1968, the community's polarization was globally exposed and further progress on school desegregation was limited. After federal courts ordered busing to implement the Brown mandate, a quarter of the district's white students departed for the nearby Shelby County Schools or for a growing, and uniquely successful, system of private schools. Since the busing order, the white population in the Memphis City Schools has steadily declined so that by the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision, a district that had been 58% white and 42% black in 1954 was 86% black and 9% white in 2004. Using the Northcross v. Board of Education of the Memphis City Schools litigation as a guide, this article traces that history, putting Memphis in the context of the larger desegregation story.
In the wake of the most important public schools case in decades, Parents Involved in Community Schools (PICS), the future of diversity in public schools is in doubt. This period of uncertainty comes at a moment when parents, educators, and employers are demanding high quality schools that prepare students for an increasingly globalized world. Justice Anthony Kennedy, in his PICS concurrence, recognized this and challenged districts to continue the important work of bringing different students together without resorting to unconstitutional means. Filling the void between what is essential to public education and what is constitutionally permissible after PICS, the public schools of Jefferson County (Louisville), Kentucky, one of the districts rebuked in PICS, have accepted Justice Kennedy's dare by crafting a nuanced and race-conscious student assignment plan aimed at promoting broadly-defined diversity and increasing the quality of education across the district.
The article argues two distinct points. First, it argues that the new plan is a constitutionally permissible response to PICS. Second, it argues that the new plan's broadening of both the definition of diversity and the mission of a school district represents the beginning of a new post-Brown era that is responsive to the realities of public education in the 21st century. By tethering its analysis of PICS - and specifically of Justice Kennedy's concurrence - to a specific response to that decision, the article provides a detailed analysis of the new constitutional framework in this area. Ultimately, the article argues that because it is both constitutional and educationally-relevant, the new plan represents the future of integration for any district willing to make the commitment to providing the educational benefits of diverse public schools to its students.
New Orleans
Presented as part of a program for the AALS Education Law section entitled "Five Years After Katrina: Access to Education," this article places post-Katrina education in New Orleans directly in the line of education reform triggered by the decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The article agues that post-Katrina New Orleans represents the pursuit of the same goal pursued by the Brown plaintiffs: improved access to educational opportunities for students, most of whom are African American, not being equitably served by the status quo. The article then frames these two moments - the Brown decision and Hurricane Katrina - as inertia-jarring events in the history of New Orleans public education and compares the responses to these two hurricanes (one figurative, one literal).
Connecting the post-Brown and post-Katrina eras, the article focuses on themes common to both - state intervention in New Orleans schools and an increase in choice for students - and details the ways in which the response to one has shaped the response to the other. Looking at ways the city has learned from the Brown era and the ways in which the city seems on a path to repeating some of that era's mistakes, the article argues that success or failure in post-Katrina public education will be impacted by the city's post-Brown experience. Specifically, although the motivation behind state intervention is clearly different than it was during the Brown era, there remains skepticism about the role of the state in providing for New Orleans public schools.
Further, despite having made choice far more widely available after Katrina than it had been before, the potential for a return to a stratified system of schools - and the class - and race-based resentment such stratification engenders - could threaten the public support New Orleans public schools currently enjoy.
The progress of public education in New Orleans is important beyond the boundaries of Orleans Parish. Post-Katrina New Orleans serves as the pivotal proving ground for the use of increased choice and charter schools to provide more equitable access to quality education. With 61% of New Orleans public school students enrolled in 51 charter schools (both numbers by far the highest in the nation), post-Katrina New Orleans represents an opportunity for the choice movement to demonstrate success on a large scale. Success in New Orleans will lead to broader choice in struggling urban districts across the country. Conversely, failure to deliver improved access to quality education will reverse the current upward trajectory of the choice movement.
Given the stakes, the New Orleans public schools are likely to be among the most scrupulously evaluated in the coming years. However, as scholars and advocates begin evaluating this reform effort and continuing to shape the future of public education in New Orleans, it is imperative to recognize the ways in which the story that precedes the hurricane shapes and impacts the story unfolding in its wake. This article serves will help ensure that happens.
If reformers in New Orleans are able to focus on the goal of increasing access to quality educational opportunities, then the chance created out of the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina will not be wasted. It would be beautifully ironic if, thanks in part to a hurricane, the schools in the city whose segregated railcars gave us Plessy v. Ferguson could finally deliver on that elusive promise of Brown to provide more equitable access to quality educational opportunities.
Memphis
This article is a comprehensive look at the story of school desegregation in the Memphis City Schools. Beginning with the Brown v. Board of Education decision that ended segregation in schooling, the article traces the steps taken in Memphis to put the Brown decision into practice. Following a period of inaction and delay, the Memphis City Schools experienced a relatively peaceful transition as token desegregation took place in the early part of the 1960s. However, after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis in 1968, the community's polarization was globally exposed and further progress on school desegregation was limited. After federal courts ordered busing to implement the Brown mandate, a quarter of the district's white students departed for the nearby Shelby County Schools or for a growing, and uniquely successful, system of private schools. Since the busing order, the white population in the Memphis City Schools has steadily declined so that by the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision, a district that had been 58% white and 42% black in 1954 was 86% black and 9% white in 2004. Using the Northcross v. Board of Education of the Memphis City Schools litigation as a guide, this article traces that history, putting Memphis in the context of the larger desegregation story.
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