Concerning Race Draft

This summer the Supreme Court heard two similar cases involving the problem of unintentional segregation in public schools. The two cases, one from Louisville and the other from Seattle, spoke of how schools have become one-sided in terms of race. This has happened naturally because of the neighborhoods that are included in school districts. Because of this phenomenon officials are trying to desegregate schools by considering race when deciding where to place children in public schools. The question is whether or not race should be a factor when deciding where children attend public schools.

Although we acknowledge that creating diversity can open opportunities, we believe that it can also limit access to better schools for kids originally in that school district because of different financial conditions in neighborhoods. Should we endanger children’s proper education for the sake of diverse classes? It is a well-known fact that some schools perform better then others when teaching children. If they have more funding and better teachers the students generally get a better education. Because of these varying levels of education, kids that live in a great school district may be assigned to a school district that is less than par. This can disrupt the child’s education process. Another question raised by these cases is whether or not students should have to travel to enjoy diversity. When students are reassigned to institutions outside their original school district, they may have to be bused far distances. It seems excessive to make the children get up earlier and travel farther just to create diversity in the classroom. Although we acknowledge that diversity is fundamental for education, we believe that diversity should not be created at the expense of the children because it could cause stress and problems for them and their parents.

Although we acknowledge that there are many different races in schools, we believe that their race should not be the determining factor when deciding where they attend school because of issues of reverse discrimination, violations of civil rights, and segregation. Anytime race is used as a factor in situations such as employment and education, it is not unusual for it to be labeled as “racist.” In several Supreme Court cases such as Grutter vs. Bollinger, the Supreme Court found the a Michigan Law school’s limited use of “affirmative action” constitutional but race is still a hot button issue especially in the growing area of “reverse discrimination.” (public.findlaw.com) Reverse discrimination is defined as the unfair treatment of members of majority groups resulting from preferential policies, as in college admissions or employment, intended to remedy earlier discrimination against minorities. In many cases, whites feel that they are losing privileges originally afforded to them due to public policies used to correct prior discrimination. In some cases affirmative actions and other programs that take race into account do result in reverse discrimination but not always. We do not believe that this is the intention or the purpose of the initiative proposed in Louisville and Seattle.

There are some advantages to having diversity in the classroom. Children can be taught about different cultures, tolerance, and other people at an early age. They will learn to respect people for their own beliefs and not be ethnocentric. Another positive result from this plan would be that children from poorer neighborhoods would have the opportunity to attend a more decent school. These opportunities would be great to have, but they can be achieved in different ways than described in the Louisville and Seattle cases.

Although there is much debate over using race as a means to an end, that end being diversity, there is no question that diversity in the nation’s public schools is important and essential in the society we live in today. The opportunities presented and the potential such an initiative holds in destroying prejudices and enlightening young minds are boundless. However, that is not to say that there is not another way to reach that goal. The government and administrators of our nation’s schools need to correct the fundamental problems facing education in the county before trying to implement such measures. Merely creating diversity will not solve the problems found in our inner cities’ schools by merely sending a portion of its students to another school in order to create diversity. What will become of the students who are not moved is just as an important question as those who do. In either case, the Supreme Court must consider all of theses factors, as we surely hope it will, than merely deciding if such an act is unconstitutional.

Do you have an idea how the simulation result might change if people could exit the system, if the whole system were continually growing, or if there were “magnet” nodes exerting countervailing force?

My own school system uses the proportion of students eligible for reduced-price or free school lunch as a yardstick for maintaining balance when attendance districts are drawn each year. This is a fast-growing school system, so new schools open each year and a lot of students move around.

We don’t seem to have a Schelling model: There is the parameter of choice, provided by magnet-schools offerings, and the parameter of growth. Both of these seem to keep individuals from being forced to make the either-or decisions (move-stay) embedded in the Schelling model. Or maybe it’s just harder to see, in this complex mix, patterns in the decisions made.

Of course, you can say that school-lunch status is a marker for race in a society where, sadly, economic and racial divisions line up closely. But at least people don’t explicitly choose a neighborhood based on the school-lunch status of the residents. The Schelling model seems to assume perfect information. Perhaps, when troubling social forces are in play, less than perfect information is a *good* thing.