For decades, policy makers, advocates, and researchers have been engaged in efforts to make educational opportunity more equal for students from different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. A great deal of research has been conducted on their efforts; however, there is some disagreement on the extent to which the research has been…

"Residential segregation's causes are both knowable and known," writes Richard Rothstein. According to Rothstein, those causes are "20th century federal, state, and local policies explicitly designed to separate the races." Even seasoned policymakers are convinced that the residential isolation of low-income black children…

Three years before his Nobel Prize, Dr. King shared his vision of non violence in a televised interview published in this article for the first time in print. King and his father both began their lives given the name "Michael" King. During a 1934 trip to Nazi Germany to attned the Baptist World Alliance Conference, the elder R. King…

Inaction to address housing segregation in metropolitan areas has resulted in persistently high levels of residential segregation. As the Supreme Court has recently limited school districts' voluntary integration efforts, this article considers the role of residential segregation in maintaining racially isolated schools, namely what is known…

The state of North Carolina is one of few states in the South in which two large districts committed to desegregating schools in the early 1970s. However, the state's two largest districts, Charlotte-Mecklenberg Schools (CMS) and Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) have experienced ups and downs in their policy commitment to desegregated…

This article argues that one possible avenue for addressing and increasing student body diversity in charter schools may lie with the authorizer. In particular, we focus on the role of university-based authorizers, a group of sponsors that would appear to be especially concerned with educational opportunity given their faculties' traditional…

I argue that enrollment of a diverse student body is but a pragmatic first step toward the broader social goal of inclusion and ask whether motives for campus diversification are aligned with pedagogic goals. I address this question by focusing on inclusion, namely, organizational strategies and practices that promote meaningful social and…

We contrast the intergenerational mobility rates of the historically disadvantaged scheduled castes and tribes (SC/ST) in India with the rest of the workforce in terms of their education attainment, occupation choices and wages. Using survey data from successive rounds of the National Sample Survey between 1983 and 2005, we find that…

Despite the growing ideological divisions, there has been a surprising political convergence on some issues related to urban policy, social services, and housing. From the spread of charter schools and school choice to the expansion of home ownership through financial deregulation, it is apparent that liberals and conservatives agree. Yet these…

The education policy and philanthropy communities to date have placed a premium on funding charter schools that have high concentrations of poverty and large numbers of minority students. This report asks: Might it make more sense for foundations and policymakers to embrace a variety of approaches, including efforts to demonstrate the feasibility…

The powerful, reciprocal connection between school and housing segregation has long been recognized. The housing-school link was a key element in both the 1968 Kerner Commission Report and in the legislative history of the Fair Housing Act. The relation of school and housing segregation was also explored in a series of school desegregation cases…

The purpose of this historical case study was to add to the literature an analysis of the landmark legal case of Jose Cisneros v. CCISD. The outcome of this case established Mexican Americans as an ethnic minority and set the legal precedent that the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Topeka ruling could be extended to other minorities beyond…

In June 2007, the Supreme Court limited the tools that school districts could use to voluntarily integrate schools. In the aftermath of the decision, educators around the country have sought models of successful plans that would also be legal. One such model may be Berkeley Unified School District's (BUSD) plan. Earlier this year, the California…

The purpose of this report is to examine what effect the increase in the number of schools obtaining unitary status has had on the racial balance of schools that were previously under court order. Specifically, the report examines whether levels of integration tend to erode as consent decrees are lifted. To that end, the Commission collected data…

Background: In 1954, the "Brown v. Board of Education" case involved four states and their school segregation laws and policies. During that period, de jure and de facto segregation were a way of life in America. Sixty years later, as most schools across the country have resegregated, the authors ask the question of whether we should be…