Bush Opposes School Desegregation Plans That Close Educational Achievement Gap

Today, the Supreme Court considered a constitutional challenge to school desegregation plans in Seattle, WA and Louisville, KY. The stakes are high. From the Christian Science Monitor:

“This is about what is left, if anything, of Brown v. Board of Education,” Theodore Shaw, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said in a recent debate hosted by the Century Foundation. If the high court strikes down the Seattle and Louisville programs, “it will be a reversal of historic proportions,” he said.

Data collected pursuant to No Child Left Behind, Bush’s signature education initiative, shows that desegregating schools improves the educational achievement of minority students. A study examining the data by American Progress Affiliated Scholar Douglas Harris found:

– African Americans and Hispanics learn more in integrated schools. Minorities attending integrated schools also perform better in college attendance and employment.

– Controlled choice and other forms of desegregation benefit minority students.

– Racial integration is a rare case where an educational policy appears to improve educational equity at little financial cost.

President Bush has long claimed that reducing the educational achievement gap between white students and minority students is a priority. Here’s Bush on October 18:

We have an achievement gap in America that is — that I don’t like and you shouldn’t like. It’s the difference between reading of African American students and Latino students and white students. The gap is closing, and that’s incredibly important for the United States of America to see that achievement gap close. How do we know? Because we’re measuring.

And yet, “the Bush administration has taken the side of the parents who are suing the school districts” who are trying to desegregate schools.

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