Blurring Public and Private: The Pragmatic Desegregation Politics of an Elite Private School in Atlanta

The school desegregation narrative often references historically white public schools as sites of massive resistance and historically white private schools as segregationist academies. Yet some historically white elite private schools or independent schools, such as The Westminster Schools (plural in name only), established in 1951 in Atlanta, Georgia, chose to desegregate. Such elite institutions, which have served as one catalyst for the creation and maintenance of social and cultural capital, became more accessible after Brown v. Board of Education through a combination of private and public decisions galvanized by larger social, political, and federal forces. Westminster's 1965 decision to consider all applicants regardless of race was emblematic of the pragmatic desegregation politics of Atlanta's city leaders during the civil rights movement and a national independent school agenda focused on recruiting black students. Drawing on institutional, local, regional, and national archival records and publications, this article examines the import of schools like Westminster to civic and business leaders, to the politics of race and desegregation occurring in large cities, and to the range of educational opportunities available in metropolitan areas. This examination yields an analysis of the leadership and politics of a southern historically white elite private school that black students desegregated in 1967.     

"Because We Did More With Less": The Agency of African American Teachers in Franklin,Tennessee: 1890-1967

This article examines a conflict that arose in 2004 between a federal court's oversight of desegregation and the implementation of the public school choice provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act in Pinellas County, Florida. School system leaders challenged the statute on the grounds that it would likely disrupt a controlled-choice plan designed to achieve racial balance as part of a court settlement to its desegregation case. The judge ruled that no changes could be made to the prior court order mandating these balances through 2008. Drawing on interviews with the county school superintendent and school board attorney, the author describes the county's decision to seek the judge's protection and analyzes several attendant conflicts. These include the legal conflict between two federal mandates, desegregation and school choice; the political tension arising between local and federal officials resulting from the changing nature of federal authority with respect to desegregation; and the policy-related conflict between test-based accountability and desegregation in southern school systems.     

Policy Implications for School Desegregation and School Choice in Chicago

School desegregation in Chicago was derived from the implementation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This article follows the formation of this policy to its implementation in Chicago. First, the federal government used the Civil Rights Act to garner school desegregation. Then, the Chicago Board of Education created desegregation plans for Chicago Public Schools which included school choice options. Finally, the article uses the oral histories of 68 graduates of three Chicago public high schools to demonstrate how the policy was utilized. The entire process reveals the continuation of institutional racism as school desegregation in Chicago was effectively limited as only a few Black and Latino students benefited from school desegregation.     

From Desegregation to Privatization: A Critical Race Policy Analysis of School Choice and Educational Opportunity in North Carolina

ABSTRACT

School choice policies and the movement to privatize education have become the currently preferred school reform methods on both the state and federal levels under the guise they will provide equal educational opportunities and access for all students. The 1954 school desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education arguably paved the way for equal educational opportunities, including school choice; however, we contend that the present-day school choice and privatization movements may be a part of a larger social, political, and legal cycle of inequality that has established residence in the American educational system for more than a century. We conduct a critical race theory policy analysis using a framework that has been effective in previous work with examining cyclical inequalities, the convergence-divergence-reclamation cycle (or C-D-R cycle). In this article, we are focusing our analysis on the state of North Carolina due to its complex legal and political history with school desegregation and its recent support for various school choice options and privatizing public education. We assert that the push for school choice and privatizing public education in North Carolina demonstrates a broader, recurring problem in American public schools-–creating progressive education laws and policies appearing to promote educational equity and opportunity and then regressing to policies supporting White privilege while maintaining the status quo of inequitable educational opportunities for historically underserved and minoritized students.     

“Doing the Best We Could”: African American Teachers’ Counterstory on School Desegregation

National narratives on the movement to desegregate Southern schools, as construed by dominant cultural forces, focus on school desegregation from the vantage point of dominant culture; portraying school desegregation as a singular and inevitable event emanating from jurisprudence and principles of democracy, with little attention to the complexities of those most impacted. This article argues the importance of including counterstory to such narratives, specifically highlighting the narratives of African American teachers. Using qualitative methods, the study this article demonstrates how African American teachers’ personal narratives of school desegregation provide a window into the complexities of school desegregation illuminating the ways in which race, social class standing, gender, and personal relationships compounded individual support, views, resistance, and participation in the movement to desegregate Southern schools.Jeannine E. Dingus in an Assistant Professor of Margaret Warner School of Education and Human Development in University of Rochester.     

Equal educational opportunity and declining teacher morale at black,white, and Hispanic high schools in a large urban school district

School desegregation plans and program efforts in bilingual education, special education, compensatory education, and others designed to promote equal educational opportunity for minorities are threatened with a teaching staff best described as being “burned out,” highly stressed, of low morale, having high absenteeism, and subject to physical abuse. This study examines the extremely low level of teacher morale at inner-city schools and finds major “ethical” stressors such as racial tension among faculty, falsifying of school records, and sexual harassment by school officials emerging as factors contributing to teacher exit and absenteeism. With the use of multivariate discriminant analysis procedures and a sample of 400 high school teachers at nine high schools (three black, three white, and three Hispanic in terms of predominant ethnicity), a set of stressors were derived which uniquely characterize teachers at predominantly black, white, and Hispanic high schools. An economic framework is also presented for understanding the nature of the teacher morale, exit, and absenteeism phenomena in urban schools.     

Desegregation's Architects: Education Parks and the Spatial Ideology of Schooling

From the early 1960s through the early 1970s, a new idea drew the interest of local leaders and national networks of educators seeking to further desegregation but concerned about how to do so within the bounds of white resistance. Huge single‐ or multischool campuses, called education parks, would draw students from broad geographical areas and facilitate desegregation. But in the design and location choices for these imagined (but often not realized) education parks, desegregation advocates revealed a spatial ideology of schooling that reflected both a rejection of racialized black spaces and an antiurban, modernist aesthetic. Beyond recognizing the place of spatial ideology in desegregation advocacy, this article suggests that historians of education listen for ideas about space and their impact in other areas of educational history.     

Difficult from the Start: Implementing the Brown Decision in the Kansas City,Missouri Public Schools

This article explores the history of school desegregation in Kansas City, Missouri. It examines the development of the school district's initial 1955 desegregation plan based on neighborhood schools, and the impact of that plan. Extensive analysis is devoted to the plan's shortcomings, particularly the provisions allowing students to transfer between schools and the manner in which massive demographic change in the city undermined school desegregation. Finally, the article explores the origins of busing for school desegregation in Kansas City during the early 1960s, the modifications made to the busing plan following protests by the city's civil rights organizations, and the subsequent court decisions that gave shape to the city's magnet schools desegregation plan.     

The second promise ofbrown

This article describes the cultural consequences of the local school closing in a predominantly black community (Centerville) as a result of desegregation policies. Based on oral accounts of community members, the author unearths the diverse functions the former all-black school used to have in the community. Furthermore, the possible reasons for the nostalgia with which the community remembers its “own” school are analyzed. It is shown why the predominantly white schools to which today's students are bused cannot possibly “pass the test” of comparison with the former community school. And finally, the article reminds us of two promises ofBrown, only one of which has been fulfilled in the case of Centerville. While racial segregation of schooling was indeed abolished in Centerville, the second promise ofBrown—providing equal educational opportunities for all children irrespective of race—remains elusive at best. And the very institution that would be central to fulfilling the second promise ofBrown—a school for which the town feels a sense of ownership—was closed for the sake of desegregation. Parts of this article have been the basis for an oral presentation at the South Atlantic Philosophy of Education Society meeting, Richmond, VA, October 1993, and are published in the SAPES Proceedings, 1993, pp. 109–114.     

High school science enrollment of black students

How can the high school science enrollment of black students be increased? School and home counseling and classroom procedures could benefit from variables identified as predictors of science enrollment. The problem in this study was to identify a set of variables which characterize science course enrollment by black secondary students. The population consisted of a subsample of 3963 black high school seniors from The High School and Beyond 1980 Base-Year Survey. Using multiple linear regression, backward regression, and correlation analyses, the US Census regions and grades mostly As and Bs in English were found to be significant predictors of the number of science courses scheduled by black seniors.     

Black Leadership and Outside Allies in Virginia Freedom Schools

In July 1963, students from Queens College (QC) and a group of New York City teachers traveled to Prince Edward County (PEC), Virginia, to teach local black youth in Freedom Schools. The county had eliminated public education four years earlier to avoid a desegregation order. PEC Freedom Schools represented the first major effort to recruit an integrated group of outside teachers and students to educate black students in a civil rights battleground over an entire summer. In contrast to the racial and class tensions that arose between black leaders and predominantly white volunteers in other civil rights campaigns, PEC volunteers willingly deferred to the expertise of local and outside black leaders. This paper identifies the relatively modest scope and well‐defined mission of the program, the real‐world experiences of volunteers, and the high quality of black leadership as factors that led to this positive outcome.     

The importance of school leaders’ engagement in socialising newly qualified teachers into the teaching profession

This article focuses on the importance of school leaders’ commitment to socialising newly qualified teachers (NQTs) into the teaching profession. Framed by a social constructivist perspective, the article is based on four challenges novice teachers face as described by four school leaders. The aim is to illuminate how school leaders have understood the conflicts and differences that come to light in these challenges. School leaders’ experiences of the encounter between NQTs and schools point to how the facilitation of the teachers’ professional development at their schools was challenged and how follow-up and guidance of NQTs only started after the problems were disclosed to colleagues and the school leaders. This study indicates that there is a lack of insight into NQTs’ work situation, a fact that seems to exacerbate a negative development in the school environment. We argue that school leaders must be more proactive by being aware of the dynamics of the teaching team when NQTs join a previously established team. School leaders should communicate the expectations they have for how the team can welcome NQTs’ new ideas, on the one hand, and offer support if they encounter challenges, on the other. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the composition of teaching teams must be reassessed from year to year so that they serve as an arena that promotes professional development for both NQTs and established teachers. Poor relationships with colleagues and a lack of cooperation within teacher teams may also have a detrimental effect on student learning. School leaders have a great amount of power and influence, perhaps much more than they are aware of, when it comes to the wellbeing of NQTs and their decision to remain in the profession. We underline the importance of the role school leaders have in socialising NQTs into the teaching profession by paying attention to how they are welcomed and mentored by their colleagues in school.     

Leading educational improvement in Trinidad and Tobago

School leaders in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) now have the important responsibility of initiating and implementing school improvement. This raises the question of their leadership capacity and the competencies that are required for school leaders to fulfil this new role. This article focuses on school leadership in T&T. The study presented in this article utilised a qualitative interpretive research design employing a range of data collection methods, including questionnaires and interviews. The results of the study confirm a need for developing a new type of school leader who is: better trained, more research oriented, more of a risk taker and autonomous.     

Uncharted territory: Speculations on some positive effects of desegregation on white students

Conclusions On the basis of analysis of the desegregation of one particular school, this paper has suggested some ways in which desegregation may be beneficial to white students. This analysis suggests that under certain circumstances desegregation can lead to beneficial changes in the school programs available, as well as to an increase in the utilization of outside resources which more than offsets additional costs linked to the desegregation process. Further, experiences in desegregated classrooms may also lead to some reduction in the almost automatic unreasoning fear many white children have of blacks, was well as helping whites develop the ability to work effectively with out-group members. The purpose of this analysis is not to argue that desegregation must go forwardbecause it helps whites or even that the benefits of desegregation always outweigh the costs for individual students, black or white. Rather, my aim has been to explore some previously uncharted territory and to suggest some hypothesis that further research can explore more fully.This paper was presented at the Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston, April 1980.The research on which this paper is based was funded by the National Institute of Education Contract 400-76-0011. Other expenses relating to its preparation were covered by grant 1R01 MH31 602-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health. However, all opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and no endorsement by NIE or NIMH is implied or intended.     

MARKETISATION AS A STRATEGY FOR DESEGREGATION AND REDRESS: THE CASE OF HISTORICALLY WHITE SCHOOLS IN SOUTH AFRICA

This article examines the process of desegregation in historically white schools in South Africa. It is argued that reforms within these schools can be understood as an example of the marketisation of education. The article commences with a consideration of the relevance and scope of such an approach. Exponents of marketisation in South Africa (as elsewhere) have claimed that the introduction of market forces can help to increase "choice" for the consumers of education. It is also suggested that it can act as a means of redressing past inequalities. These arguments are critically considered in relation to the experiences of black pupils both within the schools themselves and within the wider educational system. It is argued that a marketised approach towards desegregation may have increased choice for whites and for a minority of blacks, but has not increased choice for blacks as a whole. Nor has it served as an efficient mechanism for the redistribution of educational resources. Although the article is critical of many aspects of the marketisation process, it is acknowledged that some of the policies associated with marketisation are compatible with the creation of a more equitable and efficient education system.     

Blurring the color line: The desegregation of the Baltimore city public schools, 1954–1994

Perched on the Mason-Dixon line, Baltimore ignored calls for resistance from its southern neighbors by becoming one of the first cities in the country to comply withBrown. By the beginning of the 1955 school year, leaders had implemented a desegregation plan, and Baltimore was being applauded for the early and peaceful integration of its public schools. Within a few years, however, the praise faded as it became clear that Baltimore still suffered from de facto segregation. Faced with this reality, the school board refused to take the steps necessary to remedy the problem, instead shifting the blame to society at large. This failure by the board started a pattern of abandonment by school leadership that culminated in 1991 with the privatization of several of Baltimore's public schools. The result of this abandonment is a crippled school system that still has not dealt with issues of race and equality.     

Creating a Comprehensive School Reform Model: The Talent Development High School With Career Academies

This article discusses the need for comprehensive reforms in school organization, curriculum and instruction, and professional development in order to address the typical, serious problems of large, urban, nonselective high schools. The article describes the design, implementation, and effectiveness of the Talent Development High School with Career Academies, a comprehensive school reform model developed to meet these schools' needs. A plan is outlined for additional research, development, and evaluation activities to complete this model for the remaining core high school academic subjects and grades, and to provide technical assistance materials and support for further replicating the model in high schools across the nation.     

Negotiating the Contested Terrain of Equity-Focused Change Efforts in Schools: Critical Race Theory as a Leadership Framework for Creating More Equitable Schools

Educational leaders attempting to enact equity-focused change in their schools are frequently met with fierce opposition by politically powerful parents whose children are well served by the status quo. The purpose of this conceptual article is to: (a) explore the utility of Critical Race Theory as a framework for helping K-12 school leaders anticipate and make sense of resistance to change efforts aimed at creating greater educational equity for underserved students, and (b) suggest ways that school leaders can more effectively engage in equity reforms in their schools. To do this, we examine a highly contested public debate over a recent equity-focused change effort at Berkeley High School (BHS)—a large, racially and socioeconomically diverse public school in Northern California. Using the events at BHS as an example, we argue that change efforts could be undertaken more effectively by: (a) identifying and addressing the underlying property interests up front, (b) anticipating how majoritarian narratives rooted in “colorblindness” and deficit thinking would be employed as a means for obscuring and maintaining unequal access to scarce resources, and (c) focusing on specific areas of interest convergence.