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School DesegregationThe San Francisco Unified School District and the Consent Decree of 1983Housing choice is a fundamental factor in land use and transportation decisions, with an important relationship to school desegregation. Many parents make their housing decision based in large part on their perceptions of school quality, which are often closely related to the racial demographics of the community and the school.Historical Patterns of Residential Selection in the United StatesShortly after Brown v Board was decided, as suburbanization increased the number and population of smaller municipalities on the outskirts of America's major metropolitan areas, Charles Tiebout proposed a new way of looking at homebuyers' decisions. He theorized that when choosing a residence, people base their decisions on the public goods available in a given community. And that if the purchaser is choosing from several municipalities, relatively near one another, housing markets could come to resemble a free market. In this market, homebuyers would pick their residence based on a bundle of services provided to that location.(1) In the United States public education is the predominant service provided by local governments, particularly in suburban locations. This strong link between residential selection and educational selection has given rise to patterns in the purchasing of residential property. Purchasers choose communities with the best schools they can afford, leaving low quality school districts, and bidding up the price of housing in low quality school districts. Many of those left in the low quality school districts are unable to afford the price of admission to a higher quality school district.A home buyer's propensity to locate in the best school district possible, coupled with the overall preference to locate in racially homogenous communities, results in schools that are racially separate and academically and fiscally unequal. One aim of school desegregation programs is to create equal access to high quality schools for all children, regardless of race or ability to pay. In "unified" school districts, minority parents unable to choose the best school for their children, due to fiscal constrains or segregation effects, are provided with benefits equal to those living in affluent areas. Though the initial process of racial integration proceeded slowly, starting in the late sixties, a series of Supreme Court rulings catalyzed desegregation efforts by setting standards for integration, approving busing as a means of desegregation, and including Latinos in desegregation programs. Successive rulings, however, undermined the Brown decision by proscribing metropolitan-wide desegregation programs and approving the funding of remedial programs in lieu of meeting standards of integration(2). These rulings were the beginning of the severe resegregation of America's public schools after decades of increasing integration.
SFUSD and the Consent DecreeThe case of San Francisco's Unified Public School District (SFUSD) typifies the early achievements of desegregation programs in public schools and the relapses that followed. In the late 1970's the San Francisco NAACP sued the SFUSD for maintaining severely segregated schools. The federal District Court ordered the SFUSD to adopt a consent decree that mandated the desegregation of the public schools. The consent decree called for the elimination of "racial/ethnic segregation or identifiability in any SFUSD school, program, or classroom."(3) The San Francisco consent decree was unique in that it included standards for academic achievement for African American and Latino children.Desegregation initiatives were accomplished using a quota system that placed students primarily based on race. If a parent did not want their child to go to the neighborhood school, they could rank their choice of schools across the district. The goal of the placement system was to give all students an equal opportunity to attend one of the better performing schools in the district.(4) There were, however, caps on the number of students of each race that could attend each school. Specifically, no single racial/ethnic group could comprise more than 45 percent of a school's population and four of nine racial/ethnic groups had to be present at each site. Substantial funding was provided for implementation of the desegregation program, with disproportionate funding given to underperforming schools. Shifting demographics in the San Francisco area posed a problem for the ongoing enforcement of the consent decree's standards for integration and eventually became the downfall of the entire program. When the program was initiated in 1983, African Americans were the largest minority group in the San Francisco area. In 2004, Asian and Latino populations had far surpassed that of African Americans. The number of Black students declined by 40 percent and White students by 20 percent (5); many parents simply chose to send their children to outlying school districts or private schools instead of participating in the racial integration of the SFUSD. For other parents, the SFUSD's quota system denied them the ability to choose the best schools for their children. In 1994, a group of Chinese parents, angered by their children's exclusion from the district's higher performing schools, brought a pivotal lawsuit against the SFUSD. The court found the SFUSD's system of placing students discriminatory and declared that the district adopt a "race-neutral" system.(6) The implementation of the consent decree, and therefore, the current standards for desegregation and academic achievement, are slated for termination in 2006. The consent degree in San Francisco attempted to eliminate school segregation and close the achievement gap by giving equal opportunities to all children, regardless of race or fiscal ability to choose a school. In regards to desegregation, the program proved successful. In 1996 the SFUSD boasted one of the most racially integrated school systems in the country. Unfortunately, the academic performance differential was not as remarkable. Similar to results in other school systems, the desegregation of initially high performing schools did boost the performance measures of underperforming minorities, without apparent impact on the performance of other students. The program did little, however, to equalize the academic performance across racial groups in initially poorly performing schools. Schools comprised of African-American, Latino and low-income Asian immigrant students significantly underperformed despite higher per-pupil funding. The mixed successes under the consent decree are far overshadowed by the dramatic regressions since the race placement system was abolished. Students in the SFUSD, an area where housing segregation is prevalent, are now placed mainly according to their residence. The district has undergone a dramatic resegregation: 41-43 schools that once complied with consent decree standards of integration are now severely resegregated. 25 additional schools are completely resegregated.(7) Some hail this as a victory of personal choice over government meddling; others mourn the loss of fairness and equal opportunity.
The Future of Schools and Racial IntegrationSan Francisco's experience with their racial integration program suggests that forced desegregation programs are not likely to fare well in the future of the United States. Parents clearly prefer the chance to choose where their children will go to school, and will resist or retreat from attempts to force their children to go to schools they perceive to be of lower quality. Instead, approaches oriented more directly towards school quality rather than racial integration, may well improve educational outcomes for minority students. Proposals for magnet, and community schools, for example, do not reduce parental choice, but enhance it with options targeted to specific concerns or interests.
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