NPR on Seg… Busing, Voluntary Integration

NPR’s All Things Considered had a week of segregated-schools talk…  All of this is worth a listen…

This piece follows a Black family whose children attend wealthy, suburban white schools (part of a 50 year program where Black and Latino students voluntarily bus into white/wealthy/suburban schools – unidirectional integration).

Very compelling, hearing the kids’ voices… and what this means for them because, yes, their sons are “shouldering the work of this voluntary integration program.”  (I sort of –differently but sort of – know what this feels like… at least as a mother of kid doing another version of this work, too)…

Why Busing Didn’t End School Segregation

From Matt Delmont “Unfortunately, it’s the case across the country that white parents simply don’t want to send their kids to schools that have large numbers of African-American or Latino students… even if they consider themselves to be liberal and might say in theory or in the abstract that they’re in favor of integration, when push comes to shove and they have these integration programs, they almost consistently oppose them…”

While the numbers bear this out, there are also many parents who DO see the many benefits of voluntary integration, of sending their kids to “poor” or majority not-just-like-me schools, of rejecting white-middle-class-segregated schools. Colleen said it best the other day: School Integration is the new “buying local.”

White House Calls On Schools To Establish Voluntary Integration Programs