When Public Schools Aren't Color-Blind

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The Jefferson County dispute has in some ways been brewing for more than a half century, ever since the Supreme Court in its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawed school segregation. The busing battles that followed this landmark ruling were the stuff of civil rights lore. But in 1991 the court ruled that school districts could abandon that unpopular strategy and return to neighborhood schooling, even if that meant some schools would resegregate. That's what happened in many districts, and the proportion of black students attending nonwhite-majority schools has increased over the past dozen years from 66% to 73%. In some parts of the country, Latino segregation is even higher, according to Harvard University's Civil Rights Project. Many school districts have given up trying to break up racial concentrations and instead are working to deal with the achievement gaps that accompany largely segregated schools-- a de facto return to the separate-but-equal idea that Brown v. Board of Ed. sought to abolish.

Jefferson County has worked hard to avoid this first by racially gerrymandering school- attendance zones in the 1980s and then by instituting its 15/50 "managed choice" program in the '90s. This system has maintained not only integrated schools but also community peace. Despite all the long bus trips--the average ride for Jefferson County students is about 45 min.--77% of Jefferson County parents agreed that guidelines should be used to ensure diversity, according to a survey conducted in 2000 by the University of Kentucky. The district also assiduously tracks the percentage of the county's school-age children who attend public school, and in recent years, when private schools were gaining students nationwide, Jefferson County's public schools were inching up in "market share," from 76% in 2001 to 80% last year.

To keep things moving in that direction, the school district emphasizes customer service. In many neighborhoods, the buses stop every fifth of a mile. "Legally, we only have to put a stop every two miles, but we wouldn't be very popular if we did," says Mike Mulheirn, who oversees the school district's transportation system. "The seats," he notes, "are well padded."

All of this is paying off where elected officials feel it most--at the ballot box. School-board members who are pro-guidelines keep getting re-elected. Two years ago, when Meredith's lawyer, Teddy Gordon, ran for the school board, promising a return to neighborhood schools, he came in--as guideline advocates like to point out-- dead last. "I don't care if my children go to school on the moon as long as they are getting a good education," says Ronald Thomas, who lives downtown and sends his three children to school on a half-hour bus ride via the Interstate.

But critics offer a lot of complaints about the system, not the least being that some just find it galling. Why should schools that are more black than white be inherently suspect, even if they don't reflect the racial breakdown of the district as a whole? "It doesn't make sense," local PTA-board member Dreema Jackson says of the guidelines. "It's O.K. for the minority to be between 15% and 50%, but if you flip those percentages, a school is no longer diverse?"