Preserving Integration Options for Latino Children: A Manual for Educators, Civil Rights Leaders,...

7/31/2019 Preserving Integration Options for Latino Children: A Manual for Educators, Civil Rights Leaders, and the Community

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Preserving Integration OptionsforLatino Children:

A Manual or Educators, Civil Rights Leaders, and the Community

February 2008


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Preserving Integration OptionsforLatino Children:


February 2008

2008 The Regents o the University o Caliornia

Produced with generous support rom the Open Society Institute


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MALDEF The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles

Introduction

T

he impact o the United StatesSupreme Court June 2007 rulingin Parents Involved in Community

Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1andMeredith v. Jeerson County Board oEducation (cases known as PICS) may soonbe elt by your school district. At issue inthese cases was the authority o local schooldistricts to consider the race o individualstudents in taking voluntary actions toreduce racial and ethnic segregation andisolation in K-12 public schools. On behal

o 16 major Latino organizations, MexicanAmerican Legal Deense and EducationalFund (MALDEF) submitted a brie to theSupreme Court in the PICS case to armthe importance o voluntary integrationplans to Latino students. MALDEF andthe Civil Rights Project/Proyecto DerechosCiviles at UCLA can assist you in promotingand protecting educational opportunities orLatino children.

Latino students rights to desegregatedschools were recognized by the U.S. SupremeCourt in 1973. There are a number oschool districts that are under court order todesegregate. I your school district is undercourt order to desegregate, the PICS rulinghas no eect on your school district as longas the court order is in place. However,when the court order is lited, the PICS

ruling will apply to your school district.I your school district is not under courtorder to desegregate, but has recognized thebenets o racial integration and has chosento implement integration policies, the PICSruling has signicant implications or yourschool district.

The PICS ruling limits voluntarydesegregation plans. The likely eect o thePICS ruling is continued increased levels osegregation o Latino students in ineriorschools. In addition to increased school

segregation by race and poverty, there mayalso be a corresponding increase in schooldistricts subject to state sanctions or thelow academic achievement levels o raciallyisolated minorities. This document willexplain the eects o the PICS ruling andhow school board members can continueto use lawul policies, like those outlinedby Justice Kennedy in the PICS opinion,to urther the important goals o decreasingracial isolation, promoting diversity, andurthering equal educational opportunity inour public schools.

A Brief History of School

Segregation in the Latino

Community

The Latino educational experience has longbeen marked by persistent segregation andracial isolation. Throughout the early parto the 20th century, Latino students in theSouthwest were channeled into segregatedand substandard Mexican schools. PuertoRican and Dominican communities in theNortheast endured similar segregation andalso aced signicant barriers to educationalequity.

The legal struggle against the segregation oblack and Latino students began more than ahal-century ago.[1] The rst ederal lawsuitto successully challenge Latino studentsegregation wasMendez v. WestminsterSchool District o Orange County(1947).[2]


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Preserving Integration Options forLatino Children:


This 1947 decision held that separate butequal schools were inadequate and that aparamount requisite in the American systemo public education is social equality. It mustbe open to all children by unied school

association regardless o lineage. AlthoughMendezwas a landmark litigation or Latinosand an important precursor to the Browndecision, the case developed in a way thatseparated Latino segregation rom the issueo race discrimination. Specically, theparties stipulated that Mexican Americanswere part o the white race. This disconnectrom the social reality o the time, and theact that the case never reached the U.S.Supreme Court, limitedMendezs reach andcontributed to the exclusion o Latinos romuture legal and academic discourses onschool segregation.[3]

Brown v. Board o Education, which held in1954 that in the eld o public educationthe doctrine o separate but equal has noplace, is generally acknowledged as the

start o the modern civil rights era. AterBrown, the Supreme Court supported andurthered the legitimacy o desegregationplans by issuing subsequent rulings by rstrequiring desegregation with all deliberatespeed[4],and later eliminating delays andrequiring the prompt elimination o anytraces o prior discrimination root andbranch[5], and giving lower courts theauthority to order appropriate desegregation

remedies such as busing.[6]

The specic recognition that Brownsdoctrine applied to Latino school segregationdid not reach the ederal courts untilalmost two decades later with Cisneros v.Corpus Christi Independent SchoolDistrict

(1970)[7], and Keyes v. School District No. 1(1973)[8]. The rulings in both these casesrecognized that Latino students are protectedunder the Equal Protection Clause o theFourteenth Amendment, which had been

added to the Constitution ater the CivilWar to orbid discrimination by publicocials. Unortunately, even ater thoserulings, Latino students civil rights were notsuciently enorced by ederal civil rightsagencies, and Latino students generallycontinued to attend low-perorming, raciallyisolated schools.

During the mid-1970s, the Supreme Courtssupport or desegregation eorts slowlyslipped away. In one o the most signicantcases rom this era, San Antonio Indep. Sch.Dist. v. Rodriguez(1973)[9], the Court heldthat there is no ederal right to education,and that wealth is not a suspect classication.Thus, the Court ound that the Texas systemo nancing public school education wasconstitutional even though it denied equal

resources to students in poor public schooldistricts. Following the Rodriguezdecision,inMilliken v. Bradley(1974)[10], the Courtheld that lower courts could not orderinter-district desegregation (desegregationbetween two or more districts) remedies thatinclude urban and suburban school districtswithout rst showing that the suburbandistrict or the state was directly responsibleor the segregation across district boundaries.

Since almost nine-tenths o Latinos attendschools in metropolitan areas, oten inintensely segregated central cities, thesedecisions limited legal avenues or Latinodesegregation.As a result, Latino students have never


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experienced an overall decline in racialisolation. Today, Latinos are the mostsegregated minority group in our nationspublic schools. In 2005-06, one-th oLatino students in large cities attended

schools o almost absolute racial isolation(where 99100% o the students werenonwhite).[11] Integration o Latinostudents with white students has beendeclining on a national level ever since thedata were rst collected in 1968. Sincethat time, Latino segregation has increasedin every region o the country. Whendesegregation plans ended in Las Vegasand Denver, segregation soared. Indeed,during the l980s the level o Latino studentsegregation surpassed that o AricanAmerican students, and it remains that waytoday.[12] By the 2005-6 school year, abouttwo o every ve Latino students acrossthe country attended an intensely raciallysegregated school (0-10% white students).Moreover, Latino English Language Learner(ELL) students attend schools where over

60% o the students are Latino. All o thesestatistics are especially troubling in light othe act that Latino student public schoolenrollment has quadrupled in size rom 5%in 1968 to 20% in 2005.[13]

The Seattle/Louisville United

States Supreme Court Ruling

How did the Seattle and Louisvilledesegregation plans work?

In order to comply with the Brown rulingand to create racially integrated schools thatserve all students, many school districtsacross the country have implemented

voluntary desegregation plans. Some schooldistricts have implemented such plans evenater their release rom court supervisionand the termination o court-ordereddesegregation plans.

Beginning in the l970s, magnet schoolsbecame popular methods or desegregatingurban school districts. Providing schoolswith special educational oerings that werenot available in comprehensive schoolsmade magnet schools attractive to parentso all races. The ederal Magnet School Actrequired desegregation plans or magnetschool grants. These desegregation planslimited the enrollment o students romany one racial group and set aside seats orstudents rom other racial groups, therebysuccessully integrating many public schools.The ederal government strongly encouragedmagnet programs and schools and requiredthat they have desegregation policies.[14]

The Jeerson County Public School District,

which serves the Louisville, Kentucky area,voluntarily operated a district-wide plan omagnet programs and school choice withdesegregation guidelines. The district alsoused race-conscious attendance zones andclustering o schools to produce desegregatedschools. Students could choose to attendtheir neighborhood school or a schoolassigned to their neighborhood cluster.Students could also apply or a transer to

any other school in the district, but thedistrict would deny the transer i it wouldurther racial segregation at either thesending or receiving school.Seattle, Washington, which has a multiracialpopulation o Anglos, Latinos, Arican


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Americans, Asian Americans, and AmericanIndians, did not have a district-widedesegregation plan, but instead providedpreerences or minority students at a ewoversubscribed high schools in order to

modestly increase integration in these high-quality, largely Anglo schools. In general,Seattle operated an open choice system orhigh schools. Each student had the optionto attend high school in any part o thedistrict by ranking their top three choices.In those high schools with more applicantsthan seats available, the district had tiebreaker policies, including the considerationo the students race and whether or notthat student would increase the level osegregation at the school.

Importantly, in both the Louisville andSeattle cases, the school districts consideredrace as a actor in student assignment onlywhen schools were racially isolated. It wasthe goal o both districts that the studentbody population at each school roughly

refect the racial proportions o thosestudents in the district as a whole. Ineach case, parents o Anglo children suedthe school districts arguing that the plansviolated the Equal Protection Clause o theFourteenth Amendment. In both o thesecommunities, surveys o high school studentsshowed that students o each racial groupbelieved that desegregated schools preparedthem to live and work eectively in their

multiracial cities.[15] The lower courts ruledin the school districts avor, and the parentsappealed to the United States Supreme Court.

What was the main issue that the

Court considered?

The main issue considered by the Courtwas whether school districts may consideran individual students race in making

school assignments to promote integrationin school districts that had not operatedlegally segregated schools (such as Seattle) orthat had operated legally segregated schoolsbut had been released rom court-ordereddesegregation (such as Louisville).

What role did the Latino community

play in the case?

On October 10, 2006, MALDEF led anamicus curiae(riend-o-the-court) brie inthe U.S. Supreme Court on behal o 16national and local Latino organizations thatrepresent the interests o Latino students.[16]In the brie, MALDEF argued that theinterests o Latino students, who nowconstitute the nations largest and astest-growing minority group in U.S. public

schools, must be considered by the Courtin reaching a decision in the cases. Theprograms at issue in Seattle and Louisvilleurthered the intent oBrown and wereconstitutionally permissible, in MALDEFsview, because integration and avoiding racialisolation in public schools are compellingstate interests that justies the limited useo race in school assignment plans. Therewere many bries submitted by educational

experts and organizations supporting thisview. An independent analysis o all theinormation presented to the Court by theNational Academy o Education ound thatthe evidence supported this claim.[17]

What was the Courts ruling?


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On June 28, 2007, the United StatesSupreme Court, in multiple complexopinions, struck down the race-consciousplans used by the Seattle and Jeerson

County school districts. Indeed, althoughthe Court split 5-4 to strike down the plans,that ve separate opinions were producedby individual Justices revealed a deeplydivided court. Chie Justice Roberts, writingor himsel and three other Justices (Alito,Thomas, Scalia) who opposed all voluntaryintegration plans, acknowledged thatremedying the eects o past intentionaldiscrimination is a compelling interest.The Chie Justice held that this compellinginterest did not, however, apply to the Seattleand Jeerson County plans because theschool systems were not under court orderto desegregate when they carried out theirintegration plans.

While Justice Kennedy joined the ourabove-mentioned justices in striking down

the specic plans in Seattle and JeersonCounty, he also agreed with our otherJustices (Breyer, Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter)that some voluntary race-conscious plansare constitutionally permissible. Mostimportantly, Justice Kennedy made clear thata compelling interest exists in avoiding racialisolation and achieving a diverse studentpopulation. In other words, Kennedysopinion held that districts can use race in

certain limited ways to oster diversity inK-12 public schools.

Although Justice Kennedys opinion isvery valuable to continued desegregationeorts, Justice Kennedy rejected the mostcommon student transer and magnet schooldesegregation strategies used by school

districts throughout the nation. Thus,school districts that operate desegregationplans similar to those in Seattle and JeersonCounty must either revise or potentiallyabandon those models. Justice Kennedys

opinion and Chie Justice Roberts ruling letunanswered questions about how race couldbe considered as one component in designingstudent assignment plans that oster diversity.Justice Kennedy explicitly approved othertechniques (described below).

How the Supreme Courts

Ruling in Seattle/Louisville

Affects Schools

A. School Districts Under Court Orderto Desegregate

The Supreme Court ruling altered theconstitutional law governing voluntaryschool desegregation, but it does not applyto, and has no eect on, court-ordered

school desegregation plans.

Presently, there are several hundred schooldistricts in the U.S. that are under courtorder to desegregate. Many o these planscover school districts with large numbers oLatino school children, particularly in theSouth. The PICS ruling does not apply tothese school districts. These school districtscan continue to use race-conscious measuresas approved by the court orders.

What you can do: I your district is undera court order to desegregate, it is ar morebenecial to remain under court order and tonegotiate any needed modications than tohave the court order lited. Liting the court


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order means losing the ability to considerrace and ethnicity positively or purposeso creating and maintaining integratededucational opportunities. Unless there hasactually been a ull and successul remedy or

the history o discrimination, segregation,and unequal treatment or a reasonableamount o time, local education leadersshould resist requests or terminating courtorders by documenting to school authorities,and to the court, the problems yet to beresolved.

Resisting eorts to dissolve desegregationcourt orders is particularly important becauseLatino students interests are oten ignored inthe termination o desegregation plans. Thekey Supreme Court decisions in l991 romOklahoma City (Okla. City Bd. o Educ. v.Dowell, 1991)[18] held that a desegregationplan could be eliminated and the rights onwhich it was based terminated when a ederaldistrict judge ruled that the district had doneas much as was practicable under its order

or a number o years. When a district wasunder a ederal court order it was orbiddenrom taking actions that increased segregationand racial inequality, since it was still under acommand to correct those historic results osegregation. Once the order was lited andthe district was declared unitary, or havingshown good aith in eliminating segregation,no such obligation existed. Districts couldthen take any action or which a plausibly

reasonable argument existed, such as havingchildren closer to their homes, no matterwhat segregation and educational inequalitiesresulted unless civil rights lawyers couldprove that the school ocials intended todiscriminate, a standard almost impossibleto meet.The result o this process was that in

districts where Latino students hadnever been included in the desegregationprocess, their constitutional rights to adesegregated education were eliminatedwithout ever being recognized or enorced.

Since getting any court-ordered remedy orracial inequality requires proving a historyo discrimination, wiping the slate o thehistory o discrimination clean ends theLatino communitys ability to successullychallenge segregated schools. Under acontinuing court order, a school systemcannot take actions that are certain toincrease segregation or inequality. I thecourt order is lited, a school system has armore leeway to take such actions and willonly be stopped i the school system admitsthat its actions were specically taken toincrease segregation.

Moreover, ater courts terminatedesegregation orders, there is typically asurge in school segregation. Such was thecase documented by the state monitor in

San Francisco.[19] Another report indicatedthat not only had segregation increasedmarkedly, but that increased segregation wasrelated to a rising number o schools scoringat the bottom o the Caliornia AcademicPerormance Index.[20] Similar patternsappear in other school districts throughoutthe nation. Researchers comparing testscore results or schools, with various levelso racial change ollowing termination o

a desegregation court order, showed thatwithin three years ater the desegregationplan, test scores had become more stronglyrelated to the percentage o white studentsin a school.[21] The data showed thatLatino and black scores ell in schools thatexperienced a declining share o white


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students and rose in schools where the whiteproportion increased. The advantage ostudent body diversity was greatest or Latinostudents. (White students in the Denverstudy did not, however, show gains as the

proportion o white students in their schoolsincreased with resegregation.)[22]

B. School Districts Engaged inVoluntary Desegregation Efforts

There are approximately 1,000 schoolsystems in the country that presently chooseto use race as a actor in student assignment.

These schools are directly aected by thePICS ruling. The eect o the PICS decisionon these schools is that plans that classiyor categorize individuals solely on the basiso their race in order to treat those studentsdierently will come under increasedscrutiny in the courts.

This does not mean that race-consciouspolicies are prohibited. Schools may use

race as one o several actors in a schoolattendance plan. Measures designed toachieve racial diversity that do not classiyindividual students on the basis o race aregenerally permissible without exception.Justice Kennedy held that school districts canpursue certain race-conscious measures toachieve diversity and to avoid racial isolation,and can pursue those same goals througha more nuanced, individual evaluation oschool needs and student characteristics thatmight include race as a component. Viableoptions or school districts that comply withthe connes set by Justice Kennedy are moreully discussed in the next section.

Viable Options for Promoting

Diversity and Avoiding Racial

Isolation in K-12 Student

Assignment After the Seattle/Louisville Cases

While the Supreme Court decision createsnew challenges or school districts that wishto oster diversity in local schools, it leavesroom or new methods that preserve orcreate integrated educational opportunitiesbeneting all students.

I a community desires to oster diversity inpublic schools, it can do so and still complywith the PICS ruling. The ruling preventsschool ocials rom assigning studentson the basis o their individual race, but itdoes allow other techniques that will osterdiversity in public schools. Generally,school boards may use mechanisms that arerace conscious but do not lead to dierenttreatment based on a students racialclassication. Justice Kennedy specicallyendorsed the use o:

i. Strategic site selection o new schools;

ii. Drawing attendance zones with generalrecognition o the demographics oneighborhoods;

iii. Allocating resources or specialprograms;

iv. Recruiting students and aculty intargeted ashions, and

v. Keeping track o enrollments,perormance, and other statistics by race.


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Permissible Race-Conscious

Measures:

Strategic site selection for new schools:

I your school district plans to build newschools, school authorities can strategicallyselect sites in neighborhoods where theresulting attendance zones can be drawn so asto avoid racial isolation and create diversity.Communities considering such plans needto look careully not only at the existingpopulation distribution, but also anticipateand plan or uture demographic changes.Use o these techniques along the boundaries

o rapidly expanding non-white communitieswill not produce lasting integration.

Design attendance zones that maintaindiversity and/or avoid racial isolation:In school districts which use a system omandatory assignment to a school basedon where the student lives, school ocialscan redraw school attendance zones tomaintain racial diversity and/or decrease

racial isolation. For example, i a small whitecommunity lies next to an overwhelminglyLatino school, the school board may adjustthe attendance zone to include the whitecommunity, thus bringing white studentsinto the Latino school which decreases racialisolation.

Recruit students and faculty in a targetedfashion: The PICS decision also allowstargeted recruiting or choice schools,which potentially is quite valuable inostering integration. A school district mayattempt to maintain integration not byholding spaces or Latino children, but byactive inormation and recruitment eorts inLatino neighborhoods. Recruitment eorts

would ensure that minority amilies knowabout their options and eel welcome in thechoice schools so that they will apply intime to obtain some o the seats. There isstrong evidence that access to inormation

about educational options is much morelimited in Latino amilies and communities.Latino amilies and communities are otenisolated rom networks o inormationabout the quality o school programs andthe relative success o dierent schools ingraduating students and preparing them orsuccess in college.[23]

Keeping racial statistics: The Courtsdecision supports the continued collectiono racial statistics and school districts are stillrequired under the l964 Civil Rights Actto report enrollment and teacher statisticsto the ederal government and to reportachievement by race, ethnicity, and annualchanges under the No Child Let BehindAct. Much o this inormation, however, isnot included in local school district websites

and reports. It is very important or localcommunity groups, civil rights groups,parents, and the general public to have thisinormation, which is critical to analysiso developing patterns o resegregation, oeducational equity, and o the educationalopportunities and gaps at each school. Fulland easy access to this critical civil rightsinormation should be requested in eachdistrict and state.

Allocate resources for special programs:School ocials may, under PICS, osterschool diversity by setting aside seats inspecialized schools or programs based on anumber o individual or amily characteristicssuch as poor children, ELL children, children


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whose parents have a limited educationalbackground or children raised in single-amily homes, children with low test scores,or other similar race-blind alternatives.Research suggests that none o these is likely

to work as well in producing integratedschools as direct consideration o race andethnicity, but they may produce some level ointegration and contribute real educationalvalue. Such alternatives are most likely towork where there are only two major racialand ethnic groups in a community with widegaps between those groups, or example insocioeconomic or ELL status. Such plansare, however, less likely to work in complexmultiracial settings.

Justice Kennedy let open the possibility thatrace could be a component o other studentassignment methods as long as they refecta more nuanced, individual evaluation oschool needs and student characteristics.Because Justice Kennedy did not provideparticular examples, it is not entirely clear

what this means. While Justice Kennedyclearly disavored the use o individual racialclassications, he indicated that they couldbe used as a last resort.

Suggested Race-Neutral

Measures:

Promote dual language programs/schools:

Dual language (or bilingual) academicprograms and schools are promising bothor integration and or educational andsocial benets. In these schools, which mayinclude fuent English and Spanish speakers,all students can become fuent in the otherlanguage. Moreover, they provide optimalconditions or successul racial and ethnic

integration. When properly implemented,dual language programs give equal status toeach language, and each group o studentshas to rely on the other group to becomegenuinely fuent. In such programs, teachers

work together to assure that all the studentsobtain something that ew Americansachievegenuine bilingual fuency, anobvious advantage in communities with twomajor language groups.

Research has shown that in well-implemented dual language programs,Spanish speakers may reach higher levelso English reading prociency than inany other instructional model, and thatEnglish speakers gain command o a secondlanguage while suering no loss in standardmeasures o academic achievement in otherareas.[24] Inter-group relations are enhancedand respect and interest in other studentslanguage are increased in such settings.[25]A number o districts developed suchschools as one orm o magnets within their

desegregation plan. These schools workbest where the enrollment is appropriatelybalanced by language group, which wouldnot violate the PICS ruling. Although thePICS ruling requires that racial and ethnicassignment patterns be reviewed, a newpolicy balancing enrollment based on nativelanguage would permit continuation o thiseducational model under optimal conditions.

Place magnet schools and programs inmajor employment areas: Placement omagnet schools based on a parents worksiterather than residence is especially promisingin districts where there are strong segregatedhousing patterns. Such schools can beattached to major employment areas where


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Preserving Integration Options forLatino Children: 0


workers children rom dierent ethniccommunities can share an interesting newschool. There are a number o excellentmagnet schools that have been created incollaboration with universities, or example.

School systems may wish to examine suchalternatives to draw a diverse pool o studentsrom all parts o the city or beyond. Somestates permit students to enroll where parentswork as well as where they live.

Student transfers: Policies orbiddingtransers that increase segregation and permittransers that increase integration have beenstandard parts o desegregation plans ororty years. It is now orbidden to grant ordeny transers on the grounds o race alonein districts not under court order. Transerscan be a valuable asset or integration andstudent learning opportunities, particularlywhen good inormation is available and reetransportation is provided. Students enrolledin the thousands o schools ailing to makeadequate yearly progress under No Child Let

Behind have a right to transer to anotherschool within a district. Few students,however, exercise that right. Beore therewere desegregation standards or transerpolicies, white and high-achieving studentsoten transerred out o heavily nonwhite andlow income schools, leaving those schoolswith even more concentrated disadvantageand urther undermining neighborhoodresidential integration.[26] To provide a

transer policy that complies with the courtdecision and oers some opportunity orpositive integration, communities needto examine local demographics, povertyconcentrations, etc. and create controls basedon actors other than race, such as transerswhich increase academic diversity, preerenceor students in the lowest perorming

schools and neighborhoods, preerence orlowering linguistic segregation, etc. A veryimportant element o a transer policy orLatino students is the provision o strongoutreach to parents in both English and

Spanish with inormation about academiceatures and opportunities. In states whichpermit transers across district boundaries,those opportunities should be included ininormation to parents.

Holistic community developmentplanning: School ocials can careullyconsider housing trends and work to ensureresidential diversity through the targeted useo subsidized housing programs. Diverseneighborhoods that result in racially andeconomically diverse schools can attractand hold parents who become powerulnew supporters o their local public schools.Residential integration, thereore, can ensureacademic benets or low-income andminority children while ensuring the long-term commitment o white and middle-class

amilies to local public schools.

Promote socio-economic integration:Racial segregation is closely linked tosegregation by poverty at the school level.Thereore, the most widely consideredalternative to considering race to urtherintegration is socio-economic status. SinceLatinos, Arican Americans, and AmericanIndians have, on average, considerably

higher poverty levels than whites and AsianAmericans, it may seem and, in certaincircumstances, be plausible to maintaindiversity and avoid racial isolation by lookingto a students poverty level. Local conditionsmust, however, be closely examined, toensure that poverty-based integration plansactually will decrease racial isolation. A


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signicant challenge in thinking about theseissues is to nd a way to preserve access orLatinos who are not poor and do not livein traditional Latino neighborhoods. Theseamilies, many o whom are rom upwardly

mobile working- class or lower middle-classbackgrounds, may not be reached by poverty,neighborhood or language criteria, but maylack the same academic preparation as Angloor Asian-American children.

The Educational

Consequences of Segregation

and Racial Isolation: Why

Latino Communities Should

Promote Desegregation and

Diversity

For many Latinos, the promise o aneective public education remains elusive.Despite Brown, Latino students have neverexperienced an overall decline in racialisolation; in act, they increasingly languish

in segregated settings with drastically limitedopportunities. For Latino school children,decreasing this racial isolation holds thepromise o improved academic opportunitiesand attainment, as well as greater civic andpolitical engagement all signicant andimportant goals as the Latino communitygrows into its role as the largest minoritygroup in the nations diverse landscape.

Integrated Schools Promote

Democratic Values

Courts have long acknowledged thatpublic schools bear responsibility not onlyor instructing their charges in academicsubjects, but also or instilling the democratic

ideals that we collectively share andprioritize. As noted in Brown (1954) andPlyler v. Doe(1982), public schooling has apivotal role in maintaining the abric o oursociety and in sustaining our political and

cultural heritage.

Among the most cherished Americanvalues, and at the very oundations o ourconstitutional principles, are racial toleranceand an abiding belie in and commitment toequality. Integrated schools advance thesedemocratic values by providing meaningulopportunities to encounter, engage, anddevelop riendships with peers in otherracial and ethnic groups. For Latinos,whose residential segregation is both acuteand on the rise, integrated learning settingsmay represent their only avenue or suchcontacts contacts that promote cross-racialunderstanding among students, help themovercome ear and distrust o people odierent races, and make them more likelyto perceive people o dierent races as

equals.[27]

Integrated Schools Enhance

Learning, Educational

Opportunities and Access

to Higher Education and a

Connection to Greater Life

Opportunities

Segregated schools are almost alwayssegregated in multiple dimensions race orethnicity, poverty, and language resultingin triple segregation. Segregated schoolsusually also dier rom nonsegregatedschools by the level o competition in the


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peer group, the course oerings, the qualityand experience o the teachers, the schoolsconnections with colleges and good jobs,the stability o student enrollment andaculty turnover, the health condition o

the students, and many other things thatcombine to create unequal educationalopportunities. Not surprisingly then,test scores and graduation rates are lowerand drop-out rates higher in segregatedschools.[28]

Sometimes poor learning conditions canbe overcome by remarkable leaders andteachers, but this is relatively rare. Astudent who attends segregated schoolsis substantially less likely to graduate,go to college, and complete college thana student in a well integrated school.Middle class and white children do notsuer academically rom desegregation,and they gain in other important respects,particularly in understanding other culturesand perspectives and condence about their

ability to live and work well in a diversesetting.

Latino children require access to the nationsbest schools, at a time when residential racialisolation is increasing and the importanceo strong college preparation is becomingever more essential to economic success inthe United States. Latino students mustbe allowed to learn rom the experiences

gathered in a diverse classroom setting, justas members o other ethnic groups mustlearn about Latinos. At a time when thereare too ew opportunities or youth toprepare or success in a multiracial society,Latino communities must preserve optionsor the voluntary integration o our publicschools.

Getting Help

Many school districts will be dealing withthe impact o the PICS case in the comingmonths and years. It is important to learn

about and participate in the discussions anddecisions.

MALDEF is a national non-prot legalorganization that employs litigation, policy,advocacy, and community education programs

to protect and promote the civil rights othe Latino community. MALDEF will beavailable to consult with parents, communitymembers, and school authorities. Please visitMALDEFs website atwww.malde.org orcall (213) 629-2512.

The Civil Rights Project/ProyectoDerechos Civiles (CRP/PDC) consultswith schools districts and communities.Inormation can be ound at:www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu.Contact by email: [email protected] or call310-267-5562. Nine university-based civilrights centers across the country have alsoexpressed their desire to help, as have manyresearchers working in the eld. ContactCRP/PDC or names in your area.


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Notes

[1] Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., Let Them All Take Heed, Mexican Americans and the Campaign orEducational Equality in Texas, 1910-1981, Austin: Univ. o Texas Press, 1987; Hershel T. Manuel,The Education o Mexican and Spanish-Speaking Children in Texas, Austin: UT Fund For Research in

the Social Sciences, 1930; George I. Snchez, Concerning the Segregation o Spanish-Speaking Childrenin Public Schools, Austin: Inter-American Education Occasional Papers, no. IX (Austin: University oTexas, 1951.

[2]Mendez v. Westminster. (64 F. Supp.544, C.D. Cal. 1946), a d, 161 F.2d 774 (9th Cir. 1947)(en banc).

[3] For a more comprehensive discussion o theMendezcase, see James A. Ferg-Cadima, Black,White & Brown: Latino School Desegregation Eorts in the Pre- and Post-Brown v. Board oEducation Era, Mexican American Legal Deense and Educational Fund, May 2004, available athttp://www.malde.org/pd/LatinoDesegregation.pd; Thomas A. Saenz, Mendez and the Legacy oBrown: A Latino Civil Rights Lawyers Assessment, in Symposium, Rekindling the Spirit oBrownv. Board o Education, 6Ar.-Am.L. & Policy Rev. 194; 11Asian L.J. 276; 15 Berkeley La Raza L.J.67; 19 Berkeley Womens L.J. 395 (2004).

[4] Brown v. Board o Education II(1955).

[5] Green v. County School Board o New Kent County(1968).

[6] Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board o Education (1971).

[7] Cisneros v. Corpus Christi Independent School Dist., 324 F.Supp. 599 (S.D. Tex., 1970).

[8] Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1, 413 U.S. 189 (1973).

[9] San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973)

[10]Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974).

[11] Gary Oreld and Erica Frankenberg, The Last Have Become First. Rural and Small Town AmericaLeads the Way on Desegregation, Civil Rights Project/ Proyecto Derechos Civiles, January 2008.

[12] Gary Oreld and Chungmei Lee, Historic Reversals, Accelerating Resegregation, and the Need orNew Integration Strategies, Civil Rights Project/ Proyecto Derechos Civiles, August 2007.

[13] Ibid., Computations rom the Common Core o Education Statistics by Chungmei Lee, Civil

Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, UCLA.


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[14] R. Blank, R. Levine, and L. Steel, Ater Fiteen Years: Magnet Schools in Urban Education,

in B. Fuller, R. Elmore and G. Oreld, Who Chooses, Who Looses? New York: Teachers College Press,

l996, pp. 154-172; Claire Smrekar and Ellen Goldring, School Choice in Urban America: Magnet

Schools and the Pursuit o Equity, New York: Teachers College Press, 1999.

[15] The Civil Rights Projects Diversity Assessment Questionnaire was administered to high schoolstudents in each city and showed these results. The ndings in Louisville were published in Oreldand Kurlander, Diversity Challenged, Cambridge: Harvard Education Publishing Group, 2001,Chapter 5.

[16] MALDEF, ASPIRA Assoc. Inc., Dominican American National Roundtable, HispanicAssociation o Colleges and Universities, Hispanic National Bar Association, InterculturalDevelopment Research Association, LULAC, META, NALEO, National Conerence o PuertoRican Women, NCLR, National Hispanic Medical Association, National Puerto Rican Coalition,Inc., Puerto Rican Bar Association, PRLDEF, and the William C. Velasquez Institute.

[17] The National Academy is an organization o 100 leading education researchers in the U.S. Thereport is: Linn, R. L., & Welner, K. G. (Eds.) (2007). Race-Conscious Policies or Assigning Studentsto Schools: Social Science Research and the Supreme Court Cases. National Academy o EducationCommittee on Social Science Research Evidence on Racial Diversity in Schools. Washington, DC:National Academy o Education.

[18] Board o Education o Oklahoma City v. Dowell, 498 U.S. 237 (1991).

[19] Stuart Biegel, Annual Report No. 22 o the Consent Decree Monitor, 2004-2005, submittedin San Francisco NAACP v. San Francisco Unifed School District, No. C-78 1445 (N.D. Cal., Aug.1, 2005); William T. Trent, The Eect o School Racial Composition on Student Outcomes in the

San Francisco Unied School District, unpublished report to the SFUSD, Dec. 2005.

20] UC ACCORD and UCLA IDEA, Caliornia Educational Opportunity Report 2006, Los Angeles,Dec. 2007.

[21] Nations Dropout Factories? Where are they Located? Who Attends Them? Baltimore: CRESPAR,Johns Hopkins, 2004; Chungmei Lee, Denver Public Schools, Resegregation Latino Style, CivilRights Project, January 2006; Catherine L. Horn and Michal Kurlaender, The End o Keyes:Resegregation Trends and Achievement in the Denver Public Schools, Civil Rights Project, March 2006.(Denver Public Schools relied on the Iowa Test o Basic Skills (ITBS) or teen years, makingcomparison over time possible); Roslyn A. Mickelson, Are Choice, Diversity, Equity, and Excellence

Possible? Early Evidence rom Post-Swann Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, 2002-2004, in JanelleScott, ed., School Choice and Diversity: What the Evidence Says. New York: Teachers College Press,2005, pp. 129-144[22] Catherine L. Horn and Michal Kurlaender, The End o Keyes: Resegregation Trends andAchievement in the Denver Public Schools, Civil Rights Project, March 2006.


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[23] Dierential parent inormation was documented, or example, in the San Antonio magnetschool plan. (Valerie Martinez, Kenneth Godwin, Frank R. Kemerer, Public School Choice inSan Antonio: Who Chooses and with What Eects?, in B. Fuller, R. Elmore and G. Oreld, WhoChooses? Who Loses?New York: Teachers College Press, 1996, chapter 3.)

[24] Lindholm-Leary, K. & G. Borsato (2006). Academic Achievement, in F. Genesee, K.Lindholm-Learu, W. Saunders, and D. Christina (Eds.) Educating English Language Learners.A synthesis o Research Evidence. New York: Cambridge University Press; D.K. Oller & R. Eilers(2002), Language and Literacy in Bilingual Children. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

[25] Genesee, F., & P. Gndara ( 1999), Bilingual Education Programs: A Cross-NationalPerspective,Journal o Social Issues, 55, 665-685

[26] The great majority o Southern districts implemented ree choice plans in the 1960s and theU.S. Civil Rights Commission examined their operation reporting many barriers to choice and littlesuccess in desegregation.(U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,Free Choice Plans in Operation, in

Southern School Desegregation, 1966-1967, Washington: GPO, 1967, chapter 8. In its l968 decisionin Green v. County School Board o New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430 (1968) the U.S. Supreme Courtheld that these plans were inadequate to accomplish the required root and branch dismantling oillegal segregation. Similar open enrollment plans in Northern and Western cities oten producedtransers which actually increased segregation by allowing whites to transer rom integratedneighborhoods to segregated white areas and in some cases these plans were ound to constituteillegal support o segregation. Ten cases with such ndings are reported in G. Oreld,Must We Bus?Segregated Schools and National Policy, Washington: Brookings Institute, 1978, pp. 20-22.

[27] Velez, William. and Martin, Michael, Latino Segregation Patterns in Metro Areas, 2000,Paper presented at the annual meeting o the American Sociological Association, San Francisco,CA,, Aug 14, 2004; M. Beatriz Arias, Christian Faltis, and James Cohen, Adolescent ImmigrationStudents in U.S. Schools, in E.Frankenberg and G. Oreld, eds. Lessons in Integration, Universityo Virginia Press, 2007; W.G. Stephan, Reducing Prejudice and Stereotyping in Schools, New York:Teachers College Press, 1999; Richard R. Valencia, Martha Menchaca, Ruben Donato, Segregation,Desegregation, and Integration o Chicano Students: Old and New Realities in R. Valencia, ed.Chicano School Failure and Success, 2nd ed., New York: Routledge Falmer, 2002, chapter 3.

[28] Luis Laosa, School Segregation in Texas at the Beginning o the Twenty-rst Century, inJohn Boger and Gary Oreld, eds., School Resegregation: Must the South Turn Back? Chapel Hill:University o North Carolina Press, 2005, chapter 5.

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