Integration: Testing Is the Payoff

In 1964, White Plains, N.Y. (pop. 55,000) became the nation's first city to abolish de facto segregation in its public school system by setting a 10% minimum and 30% maximum limit on Negro enrollment in any of its schools, and by bussing Negro pupils to previously all-white or mostly white schools. Scholastically, White Plains' campaign has paid off. Negro pupils who attended integrated schools since first grade score from 5% to 15% higher on reading and arithmetic achievement tests than third-graders who took the same tests when integration began. Both these groups are doing better than Negro students who...