School Desegregation, Resegregation, and Educational Reform

HOW BROWN BECAME COLOR BLIND: SCHOOL DESEGREGATION, RESEGREGATION, AND EDUCATIONAL REFORM A thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of A S The Requirements for 3 G The Degree aoil- Bh[)C B Master of Arts In Education: Special Interest by Emily Starr Bean San Francisco, California May 2017 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read How Brown Became Color Blind: School Desegregation, Resegregation, and Educational Reform by Emily Starr Bean, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree: Master of Arts in Education: Special Interest at San Francisco State University. David Hemphill, Ed.D Professor of Education HOW BROWN BECAME COLOR BLIND. SCHOOL DESEGREGATION, RESEGREGATION, AND EDUCATIONAL REFORM Emily Starr Bean San Francisco, California 2017 In this study, I review the history of school desegregation, the attempts to integrate schooling, and propose renewed efforts in this direction. I begin with the promises of the Brown v. Board o f Education (1954) ruling and an analysis of evolving contemporary segregation patterns. I then provide an overview of the ways in which the failure of the courts, housing segregation, and community resistance have contributed to the continuation of segregated schooling. I next review the current role of privatization within the education reform movement, focusing on school choice policies, and analyze the ways in which these policies contribute to contemporary issues of segregation. I conclude by providing policy suggestions that could, despite the obstacles that have emerged since Brown, continue to make integrated schools a reality in many communities. These include joint efforts to desegregate schools and housing, controlled choice diversity programs, and an increase in magnet schools and dual immersion programs. I certify that the Abstract is a correct representation of the content of this thesis. David Hemphill, Ed.D Date ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you so much to my parents, Michael and Sandy Bean, for continuing to support my education well into adulthood. More importantly, however, thank you for sending me to an “inner-city” public school where I had the opportunity to learn alongside and from a vastly diverse community of people. In a district where most White families sought other options, the decision not to flee the public school system has influenced my entire life. Second, thank you to my loving partner, Ryan Cole, for your patience, support, and understanding as I spent most evenings and weekends over the course of several months pursuing this research. Third, thank you to my principal, Moyra Contreras, for your relentless commitment to the vision of an integrated and equitable dual immersion school. Your 30 plus years in Oakland are demonstrative of the long-term commitment true educational reform requires. Thank you for including me in the path toward the realization of this vision and your flexibility with my return to graduate school while also working full-time in the classroom. Finally, and most importantly, thank you Dr. Hemphill for your limitless guidance, support, and encouragement both through the research process as well as through your belief in me that I have important contributions to make to the field of education. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Promises and Realities of Brown.......................................................................5 Hopes, Promises, and a Brief History of Brown v. Board o f Education.................5 Contextualizing the Impacts of Desegregation......................................................11 Empirical Data on the Effects of Integration.........................................................13 Critiques of Integration..........................................................................................23 Chapter 2: Current Segregation Patterns in Schools..........................................................28 Desegregation Trends by the Dissimilarity/Unevenness Index............................ 28 Overview of Desegregation Trends by the Exposure Index................................. 33 Shifting Demographics..........................................................................................38 Double Segregation................................................................................................42 Inequitable School Funding.................................................................................. 47 Chapter 3: Impediments to Brown: Judicial Decisions, Housing, and Community Resistance....................................................................................................................53 Failure of the Courts..............................................................................................54 Segregated Housing...............................................................................................70 Community Resistance: Evasion, Violence, and White Flight............................. 85 Reasons for White Resistance..............................................................................100 Chapter 4: The Segregating Effects of Educational Reform..........................................105 History and Traits of Contemporary Education Reform......................................105 School Choice.....................................................................................................109 School Choice and Segregation...........................................................................114 Why School Choice Segregates and Exacerbates Inequities...............................124 Chapter 5: Recommendations for Moving Forward........................................................134 Housing-School Desegregation...........................................................................135 Controlled-Choice Integration Plans....................................................................141 Magnets and Dual Immersions............................................................................154 Final Considerations............................................................................................157 Conclusion....................................................................................................................163 References.....................................................................................................................171 vi 1 Introduction Since the late 20th and early 21sl centuries, education reform in the United States has been dominated by terms and initiatives such as school choice, No Child Left Behind, high-stakes testing, standards-based education, Race to the Top, and many others. All of these reflect a particular neoliberal ideology of education reform that has come to dominate educational policy discourse in the United States and several other countries (Bennan, Marginson, Preson, Edward McLellan, & Amove, 2003). People from many walks of life—from Wall Street bankers, to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, to young Teach for America recruits—have entered and often controlled the conversation about what the country needs in order to bring educational quality and equality to all of its children. And yet, the topic of school integration, once so fundamental to the quest for educational equity, has largely been pushed to the sidelines, if not abandoned altogether. In July and August of 2015, the National Public Radio program This American Life produced a two-part series (“The Problem We All Live With”) on the segregation of public schools. In this series, the show hosts discuss the ways in which schools have become dramatically re-segregated since Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling which declared that separate schools were inherently unequal. Since the release of “The Problem We All Live With” (This American Life, 2015), school segregation has become a topic of growing interest for journalists, with frequent publications and stories appearing in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other media outlets. The stories are often presented with a sense of 2 astonishment at the failed promises of Brown. There are resulting calls to reignite efforts to integrate public schools and emerging challenges to current education reform rhetoric that remains largely silent on the issue of desegregation. As a critic of racial and economic segregation and a proponent of integrated schools, 1 exercise caution in oversimplifying the gargantuan task of integration. In the communities where integration has been made possible, there is convincing evidence of its value. Yet, the promises of integrated schools have been limited by subsequent decisions made in federal courts, racially segregated residential patterns, and community resistance. In order to engage productively in critical conversations about integration and educational equality, integration proponents must understand the key ways in which Brown has been prevented from realizing its goal of fully integrated and equitable schools. Given school integration’s history of a brief window of success in the late 1960s through the 1980s followed by political and judicial abandonment, this study offers a lens through which to critically examine the current education reform movement and its failure to address desegregation, one of

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