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You're absolutely correct - the average American theoretically believes that every child is entitled to a high quality, equal education, but in reality only if

by bb611 10y ago

You're absolutely correct - the average American theoretically believes that every child is entitled to a high quality, equal education, but in reality only if it doesn't cost them anything. In light of that, there's very little that the state can do to force middle class families to stay in integrated school districts, and that issue destroyed integration efforts in the '70s and '80s in most of the northeast. The real solution to the larger problem is probably a completely different education system, but the solution to this particular problem is to expand busing to the suburbs. If desegregation is the only solution to highly unequal educational outcomes, we simply need to pursue to greater lengths.

yareally 10y ago
As you mentioned, I think the option of being able to move to districts that weren't integrated and combined the way many districts tend to be funded (via property taxes) ended up being a net loss more than a net gain. If the integration experiment showed positive results as some have mentioned, families could still move elsewhere and they did. Even if integration had been enforced statewide, one could still move to a small district with only a few schools. Some districts like Columbus lost around 1/3 of their students over the 20 years they forced school integration. Ohio schools are funded by property taxes (not the best of ideas, but that's what the state decided), so Columbus was also forced to close many schools, cut back spending and likely hurt schools even further. It definitely hurt the city, since tons of buildings were left empty for years and no one had much of a reason to visit the city after 5pm.