Behind the Headlines: More districts use income, not race, as basis for busing

By Education Next 11/02/2009

On Top of the News
More districts use income, not race, as basis for busing
11/01/09 | USA Today

Behind the Headline
Try, Try Again
Fall 2001 | Education Next

Voters in Wake County, North Carolina recently elected a school board whose members are mostly opposed to the district’s policy of busing students away from neighborhood schools in order to achieve greater socioeconomic diversity within schools. Richard Kahlenberg, who wrote the book on the benefits of integrating schools economically, says that a growing number of districts are now using socioeconomic status as a factor in school assignments. In an early issue of Ed Next, John Witte and John Coons separately reviewed that book, All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public School Choice.

Ed Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester Finn discussed the meaning of the Wake County school board election in their October 29 podcast, Voters Choose Neighborhood Schools over Socioeconomic Diversity.