Integration and Diversity

Research in this section explores the impacts and benefits of racial and ethnic diversity in education, as well as resegregation trends and remedies in our nation's public schools.

Experiencing Integration in Louisville: How Parents and Students See the Gains and Challenges

In this first part of research assessing the new Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) student assignment plan, researchers surveyed samples of both parents and students across the county. Three years after the Supreme Court’s 2007 PICS decision ended Louisville's former plan, these surveys tried to get a sense of the community's experiences with school integration efforts after JCPS’s new student assignment plan was implemented in 2009.

The School-to-Prison Pipeline

In this comprehensive study of the relationship between American law and the school-to-prison pipeline, co-authors Catherine Y. Kim, Daniel J. Losen, and Damon T. Hewitt analyze the current state of the law for each entry point on the pipeline and propose legal theories and remedies to challenge them. Using specific state-based examples and case studies, the authors assert that law can be an effective weapon in the struggle to reduce the number of children caught in the pipeline, address the devastating consequences of the pipeline on families and communities, and ensure that our public schools and juvenile justice system further the goals for which they were created: to provide meaningful, safe opportunities for all the nation’s children.

School Integration Efforts Three Years After "Parents Involved"

We know more than ever about the importance of preventing racially segregated schools and the benefits that students—and society—receive from diverse schools. In fact, the Supreme Court, in its 2007 decision, acknowledged this evidence as “compelling” reasons for districts to adopt policies to further integration.

Choice Without Equity:
 Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards

The charter school movement has been a major political success, but it has been a civil rights failure. As the country continues moving steadily toward greater segregation and inequality of education for students of color in schools with lower achievement and graduation rates, the rapid growth of charter schools has been expanding a sector that is even more segregated than the public schools. The Civil Rights Project has been issuing annual reports on the spread of segregation in public schools and its impact on educational opportunity for 14 years. We know that choice programs can either offer quality educational options with racially and economically diverse schooling to children who otherwise have few opportunities, or choice programs can actually increase stratification and inequality depending on how they are designed. The charter effort, which has largely ignored the segregation issue, has been justified by claims about superior educational performance, which simply are not sustained by the research. Though there are some remarkable and diverse charter schools, most are neither. The lessons of what is needed to make choice work have usually been ignored in charter school policy. Magnet schools are the striking example of and offer a great deal of experience in how to create educationally successful and integrated choice options.

Equity Overlooked: Charter Schools and Civil Rights Policy

This report provides a much-needed overview of the origins of charter school policy; examines the failure of the Bush Administration to provide civil rights policies for charters; outlines state civil rights provisions; and highlights the lack of basic data in federal charter school statistics.

Integration Defended: Berkeley Unified’s Strategy to Maintain School Diversity

This report by researchers at the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles and the University of California Berkeley's Warren Institute argues that the Berkeley Unified School District's plan to maintain diversity could serve as a model for other public schools nationwide that are seeking constitutionally sound desegregation programs.

Districts' Integration Efforts in a Changing Climate Two Years After the PICS Decision

Two years after the Supreme Court's voluntary integration decision and in the midst of tightening budgets, school districts around the country are balancing a number of goals including pursuing diverse schools. This memo includes examples of major trends identified in districts' actions regarding diversity.