My take on yesterday’s New York Times Magazine piece on “integration” is here. (I’m not employing around integration so-called “contemptuous quotes“; I’m merely noting that the terms “integration” and “segregation,” which once were used to denote, respectively, the de jure combination and separation of black and white students, are today used in reference to de facto racial separation caused by housing patterns. But the two different meanings are too often conflated, which is why we must call attention to the way in which they’re used.)

One part of the Times Magazine article that I didn’t have enough space to explore is the idea that new class+race school assignments hold much promise for significantly elevating academic achievement. This contention is, I think, a real stretch, especially when so many other curricular and instructional and management reforms (many of which do not involve complicated schemes) would do so much more to boost student learning. I suspect that not a few diversity proponents have simply realized that fluffier justifications for busing pupils hither and yon do not, for most parents, outweigh the flaws of complicated school assignment plans. Thus the shift toward couching arguments for school diversity in terms of increasing academic performance.

Update: The Wall Street Journal reports on a demographic shift that could potentially bring more diversity to inner-city schools... potentially.

Photo by Flickr user blackheritage.