Desegregation busing
Desegregation busing (also known simply as busing or integrated busing or by its critics as forced busing) was a failed attempt to diversify the racial make-up of schools in the United States by sending students to school districts other than their own.[1] While the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, many American schools continued to remain largely racially homogeneous. In an effort to address the ongoing de facto segregation in schools, the 1971 Supreme Court decision, Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, ruled that the federal courts could use busing as a further integration tool to achieve racial balance.[2]
"Busing" redirects here. For other uses, see Busing (disambiguation).Busing met considerable opposition from both white and black people.[3][4] The policy resulted in the movement of large numbers of white families to suburbs of large cities, a phenomenon known as white flight, which further reduced the effectiveness of the policy.[5] Many whites who stayed moved their children into private or parochial schools; these effects combined to make many urban school districts predominantly non-white, reducing any effectiveness mandatory busing may have had.[5]
Criticism[edit]
Popular opinion[edit]
Support for the practice is influenced by the methodology of the study conducted. In a Gallup poll taken in the 1973, very low percentages of whites (4 percent) and blacks (9 percent) supported busing outside of local neighborhoods, even though majorities were in favour of other desegregation methods such as redrawing school district boundaries and building low-income housing in middle-income areas.[5] However, a longitudinal study has shown that support for desegregation busing among black respondents has only dropped below 50% once from 1972 to 1976 while support among white respondents has steadily increased. This increased support may be due to the diminished impact of desegregation policies over time.[29] A 1978 study by the RAND Corporation set out to find why whites were opposed to busing and concluded that it was because they believed it destroyed neighborhood schools and camaraderie and increased discipline problems.[5] It is said that busing eroded the community pride and support that neighborhoods had for their local schools.[5] After busing, 60 percent of Boston parents, both black and white, reported more discipline problems in schools.[5] Black children were more likely to be bused than whites, and some black parents saw it as discrimination that uprooted their children from their communities.[5] Politicians and judges who supported busing were seen as hypocrites, as many sent their own children to private school.[5] In the 1968, 1972, and 1976 presidential elections, candidates opposed to busing were elected each time, and Congress voted repeatedly to end court-mandated busing.[30]
Ultimately, many black leaders, from Wisconsin State Rep. Annette Polly Williams, a Milwaukee Democrat, to Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White led efforts to end busing.[31]
White flight and private schools[edit]
Busing is claimed to have accelerated a trend of middle-class relocation to the suburbs of metropolitan areas.[5] Many opponents of busing claimed the existence of "white flight" based on the court decisions to integrate schools.[5] Such stresses led white middle-class families in many communities to desert the public schools and create a network of private schools.[5]
During the 1970s, 60 Minutes reported that some members of Congress, government, and the press who supported busing most vociferously sent their own children to private schools, including Senator Ted Kennedy, George McGovern, Thurgood Marshall, Phil Hart, Ben Bradlee, Senator Birch Bayh, Tom Wicker, Philip Geyelin, and Donald Fraser.[5] Many of the judges who ordered busing also sent their children to private schools.[5]
Effect on already-integrated schools[edit]
Critics point out that children in the Northeast were often bused from integrated schools to less integrated schools.[5] The percentage of Northeastern black children who attended a predominantly black school increased from 67 percent in 1968 to 80 percent in 1980 (a higher percentage than in 1954).[5]
Effect on academic performance[edit]
In 1978, a proponent of busing, Nancy St. John, studied 100 cases of urban busing from the North and did not find what she had been looking for;[5] she found no cases in which significant black academic improvement occurred, but many cases where race relations suffered due to busing, as those in forced-integrated schools had worse relations with those of the opposite race than those in non-integrated schools.[5] Researcher David Armour, also looking for hopeful signs, found that busing "heightens racial identity" and "reduces opportunities for actual contact between the races".[5]
A 1992 study led by Harvard University Professor Gary Orfield, who supports busing, found black and Hispanic students lacked "even modest overall improvement" as a result of court-ordered busing.[33]
Economist Thomas Sowell wrote that the stated premise for school busing was flawed, as de facto racial segregation in schools did not necessarily lead to poor education for black students.[34]
Effects[edit]
Busing integrated school age ethnic minorities with the larger community. The Milliken v. Bradley Supreme Court decision that busing children across districts is unconstitutional limited the extent of busing to within metropolitan areas. This decision made suburbs attractive to those who wished to evade busing.[35]
Some metropolitan areas in which land values and property-tax structures were less favorable to relocation saw significant declines in enrollment of whites in public schools as white parents chose to enroll their children in private schools. Currently, most segregation occurs across school districts as large cities have moved significantly toward racial balance among their schools.[36]
Recent research by Eric Hanushek, John Kain, and Steven Rivkin has shown that the level of achievement by black students is adversely affected by higher concentrations of black students in their schools.[37] Additionally, the impact of racial concentration appears to be greatest for high-achieving black students.[38]