School Choice and the Integration of Schools

The issue of racial segregation in schools has vexed the United States for decades. Despite bitter and tumultuous struggles over the issue, the United States finds its’ schools still heavily segregated at the beginning of the new century. Samuel Issacharoff of Columbia Law School, a scholar specializing in desegregation, told the New York Times “You can't reconcile choice with diversity, and that's the tragedy…fifty years after Brown vs. Board of Education, there is still no non-coercive mechanism for racial integration that has evolved in this country.” This is a daunting statement- but is it accurate? If choice and integration cannot be reconciled, then the nation faces an even more segregated future given the growing trend towards choice in education. An increasing number of states embraced intra-district transfer programs, charter school, school voucher and tuition tax credits programs during the 1990s, and the trend towards choice has continued into the current decade. Given the increasing popularity of choice programs, and the recent Supreme Court ruling cementing their constitutionality, their impact on segregation patterns represents an important topic for research.