School desegregation after Parents Involved: The complications of pursuing diversity in a high‐stakes accountability era

ABSTRACT

Academic disparities among racial groups persist, which may be due in part to persisting school segregation. This study focuses on how student achievement affects diversity efforts within two urban‐suburban school districts in the South experiencing demographic changes with a history of voluntary integration efforts: Jefferson County Public Schools (Louisville, KY) and the Wake County Public School System (Raleigh, NC). We found that diversity and accountability intersected in different ways: in both districts there is a belief that diversity does matter, but with a divergence of opinion in its relative importance the details of how to accomplish diversity are contested. Our case studies are a cautionary tale of how the increased focus on achievement and accountability complicates efforts to pursue other long‐held district goals. Instead of seeing diversity and improving student outcomes as separate, policymakers should re‐evaluate how existing policies may unintentionally cause districts to end beneficial policies like desegregation.

Notes

1. Because accountability systems differ by state, JCPS is demographically unusual in comparison to the rest of its state in the high numbers of African American students it enrolls.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Erica Frankenberg

Erica Frankenberg is an Associate Professor of Education and Demography at the Pennsylvania State University where she also serves as Co‐Director of the Center for Education and Civil Rights. Her research interests focus on racial desegregation and inequality in K–12 schools, school choice and racial stratification, and the connections between school segregation and other metropolitan policies. She has published in leading education policy journals, law reviews, and practitioner outlets. Recent book publications include School Integration Matters: Research‐Based Strategies to Advance Equity (with Liliana Garces & Megan Hopkins, 2016), Educational Delusions? Why Choice Can Deepen Inequality and How to Make Schools Fair (with Gary Orfield, 2013), The Resegregation of Suburban Schools: A Hidden Crisis in American Education (with Gary Orfield, 2012), and Integrating Schools in a Changing Society: New Policies and Legal Options for a Multiracial Generation (with Elizabeth DeBray, 2011).

Sarah Diem

Sarah Diem is an Associate Professor of Educational Policy at the University of Missouri. Her research focuses on the sociopolitical and geographic contexts of education, paying particular attention to how politics, leadership, and implementation of educational policy affect diversity outcomes. She has published in the American Journal of Education, Educational Administration Quarterly, Teachers College Record, Educational Policy, The Urban Review, Education Policy Analysis Archives, the Journal of Research in Leadership Education, and the Journal of School Leadership, among other publications.

Colleen Cleary

Colleen Cleary received her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Missouri. Her research focuses on educational policy and politics, particularly community efforts to influence educational policy.