David J. Armor - Böcker

After twenty-five years of experience and research concerning desegregation, Armor considers where desegregation policy has failed, where it has succeeded, and where it may be headed. Armor shows how he arrived at his conclusions by reviewing major social science studies and drawing on extensive case materials.

School desegregation and "forced" busing first brought people to the barricades during the 1960s and 1970s, and the idea continues to spark controversy today whenever it is proposed. A quiet rage smolders in hundreds of public school systems, where court- ordered busing plans have been in place for over twenty years. Intended to remedy the social and educational disadvantages of minorities, desegregation policy has not produced any appreciable educational gains, while its political and social costs have been considerable. Now, on the fortieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's epic decision, Brown v. Board of Education, the legal and social justifications for school desegregation are ripe for reexamination. In Forced Justice, David J. Armor explores the benefits and drawbacks of voluntary and involuntary desegregation plans, especially those in communities with "magnet" schools. He finds that voluntary plans, which let parents decide which school program is best for their children, are just as effective in attaining long-term desegregation as mandatory busing, and that these plans generate far greater community support. Armor concludes by proposing a new policy of "equity" choice, which draws upon the best features of both the desegregation and choice movements. This policy promises both improved desegregation and greater educational choices for all, especially for the disadvantaged minority children in urban systems who now have the fewest educational choices. The debate over desegregation policy and its many consequences needs to move beyond academic journals and courtrooms to a larger audience. In addition to educators and policymakers, Forced Justice will be an important book for social scientists, attorneys and specialists in civil rights issues, and all persons concerned about the state of public education.

Leading scholars in the fields of history and law have assembled an enormous amount of empirical data on the outcomes of school desegregation and conclude that the policies of the past—mandatory reassignment and strict racial quotas—had too few benefits and too many costs to make them viable alternatives for the future. Chapter topics include the history of school desegregation, the development of the law, the desegregation effectiveness of remedies, ability grouping and classroom desegregation, racial disparities in school discipline, intergroup relations, the attitudes and opinions of adults in desegregated school districts, and the outlook for the future.The authors conclude that one of the biggest successes of school desegregation is that there is almost universal acceptance of the principle that racial discrimination is immoral. But school desegregation has had some important failures as well, most importantly, the failure to improve the academic achievement of black students and race relations between black and white students in desegregated schools. There have also been some serious costs—white flight and protest voting—associated with forced busing and the use of strict racial quotas. The concluding chapter argues that the solution to racial disparities in achievement, and to racial separation, lies in compensatory education for low achieving, poor children and school choice programs that do not use racial criteria but provide financial assistance to low-income families.

This book offers a novel and up-to-date exploration of the common belief that increasing conventional school resources will increase academic achievement and help close gaps between various advantaged and disadvantaged students. Taking the scholarship around this question, such as James S. Coleman’s 1965 report on the Equality of Educational Opportunity, as a starting point, it brings in an extensive range of contemporary data sources and statistical analysis to offer an updated, robust, and considered review of the issue. Moving beyond these empirical questions, it also explores how these empirical findings have been utilized in “education adequacy” litigation, discussing the evolving law of adequacy cases, while explaining the challenges of introducing complex data and analyses within a litigation framework. Judges typically have little experience with the complexity of modern education data and the analyses required to draw sound inferences. It will thus be of interest to scholars, researchers, and faculty and jurists with expertise or interest in education policy, the economics and sociology of education, and public policy.

This book offers a novel and up-to-date exploration of the common belief that increasing conventional school resources will increase academic achievement and help close gaps between various advantaged and disadvantaged students. Taking the scholarship around this question, such as James S. Coleman’s 1965 report on the Equality of Educational Opportunity, as a starting point, it brings in an extensive range of contemporary data sources and statistical analysis to offer an updated, robust, and considered review of the issue. Moving beyond these empirical questions, it also explores how these empirical findings have been utilized in “education adequacy” litigation, discussing the evolving law of adequacy cases, while explaining the challenges of introducing complex data and analyses within a litigation framework. Judges typically have little experience with the complexity of modern education data and the analyses required to draw sound inferences. It will thus be of interest to scholars, researchers, and faculty and jurists with expertise or interest in education policy, the economics and sociology of education, and public policy.

This book presents the formerly-unpublished manuscript by Wheeler and Cline detailing the landmark, comparative prisons study they conducted in the 1960s which examined fifteen Scandinavian prisons and nearly 2000 inmates across four Nordic countries.