Abstract
Part I of this Article discusses the history of Brown, and the legal and political barriers that prevented the nation from fulfilling Brown's promise. Part II, will examine the phenomenon of White flight, which resulted from the efforts to implement the court-ordered desegregation of public schools. The political and economic effects of White flight on school reform efforts will also be examined. Part III will provide the reader with possible explanations for why school desegregation failed. The author will argue that the unexpected complexity of the task of desegregation, the lack of a unified direction among the judiciary, and local political entities, as well as beliefs about the effects that school desegregation would have on White children, prevented desegregation efforts from being successful. Part IV will analyze the various alternatives to court-ordered school desegregation that developed as a result to the legal, social and political barriers, which prevented court-ordered desegregation from taking place. Part V briefly surveys the school-reform efforts of four cities. Part VI discusses the role of school finance in relation to student achievement. The property tax, as the major source of funding for public schools, will be examined, as well as the effects of funding disparities between affluent and poor school districts. Part VII follows with a discussion of the use of testing as a method of school reform.
Recommended Citation
Wilbur C. Rich,
Putting Black Kids into a Trick Bag: Anatomizing the Inner-City Public School Reform,
8
Mich. J. Race & L.
159
(2002).
Available at:
https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl/vol8/iss1/4
Included in
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