If the schools cannot use race to achieve integration, they should switch to economic criteria and integrate based on family income. The effect would largely be the same, and the conservative's usual arguments against the progressive's attempts to level the social playing field would be nullified.

Sent by Richard Van Ingram | 2:16 PM ET | 06-28-2007

Can we ever move on from this subject? Skin color is so pass??.
Any policies based on race are moronic.
Just because I look white, does that mean that I am white?
I might be a black albino.
Who decides my racial identity anyway?

Sent by Sue | 2:17 PM ET | 06-28-2007

In 1954 the Warren Court made de jure segregation in public schools undonstitutional by striking down the Separate but Equal doctrine established under Plessy v Ferguson in 1896. The rationale for the decision was and remains the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment.

However, Brown did not address de facto segregation, which was addressed in the Charlotte busing decision some two decades later. To comply with this decision, and avoid mandatory busing, many school districts opted for the voluntary integration progrmas that were struck down by the Roberts Court yesterday.

The current rationale from the majority of the justices was that Brown never addressed these issues. Of course they are right from a very narrow interpretation of Brown. But the underlying evil that Brown addressed was the continuation of racially segregated schools in America and the effects those would have on both races. The bottom line is that the philosophy of Brown was gutted in this decision. The Scalia mob has endorsed the white flight mentality that created such racial imbalance in suburban schools in the 60s and 70s. Ironically, while all those in favor of this new reality are cheering, they may find their school districts returning to mandatory busing to achieve mandatory racial integration in their schools. They better hope that a new president has not had the opportunity to change the tenuous 5-4 conservative majority by the time their predictable lawsuits reach the court. Those cheeering today may be singing a very differnt toon then!

Sent by Greg Meegan | 2:26 PM ET | 06-28-2007

Our current growing divide is a socio economic one. Yes, certain races DO seem to still suffer socio economically more than others. Take care of the socio economic situation, and you will take care of the rest.

Sent by Allison | 2:29 PM ET | 06-28-2007

I don't understand this idea that Seattle kids should be guaranteed the right to go to the school of their choosing. Most kids in this country go to their neighborhood schools and do not get to choose to go to another school just because that's what they want.

If schools were truly integrated by race, socio-economic class, etc. the bar would be raised across the board because funds would be distributed more evenly across schools regardless of what neighborhood they happen to be in.

Sent by Leah | 2:30 PM ET | 06-28-2007

As race is an unscientific social stigma, why can't people who think they are denied a preference because they have called themselves "white" simply change their "race" to "African American" or "black" or "white" to gain access to the preferance?

Sent by mulp | 2:34 PM ET | 06-28-2007

The answer to equalization of education lies not in racial balance but in economic balance. Suburban school districts should not have so many more technological, art, and honors classes resources than inner city schools. Equal funding, or per-student funding on a state level should prevail. Quality education for every student, regardless of where they live, is both a fundamental right of all children and it is only beneficial to our nation's economy and infrastructure.

Sent by Rebekah Sims | 2:39 PM ET | 06-28-2007

The point of Brown vs. Board of Education is that segregated schools are unequal schools, and this is still true today with defacto segregation. I love Richard's idea of integrating based on family income-but I bet there would be a lot of high SES families who would flip their lids if they were forced to send their kids to my neighborhood school (with 76% English Language learners and a lawn that consists of weeds and garbage)!!!!

Sent by Desneige Emmons | 2:50 PM ET | 06-28-2007

The main concern for me is that I have worked long and hard to provide for my kids the best way possible. This includes living in an area where there is a good school district. I currently live in a very pricey part of San Antonio. My neighbor is a minority and we have discussed that the sacrifice of higher living costs is worth the reward of sending our kids to a better school.

I guess my mindset is that if want to go to a better school, make it happen without help from the government. My parents were able to do so and now I am improving on their gains and my kids will have even better opporunities.

And before you start talking about how those kids can't get ahead without a bump... Ask a middle class kid how he plans to finance college. Trust me, we are all broke and in debt by 23. But you make the sacrifice and work for a better life in the future. My education was funded by my student loans and the GI Bill (government help, but at least I had to do something for it). Anyone who states that any ethnicity or income level cannot do the same is flat wrong.

Sent by Marcus | 2:53 PM ET | 06-28-2007

I didn't hear anyone on today's program who work in the schools and have seen the changes in the last decade. Schools are already back to segregation by color and socioeconomically. A man with the last name of Kobol has researched this extensively throughout the country. I don't feel your program did its research today. I'm watching my district turn into separate and unequal over the past decade. This is a national crisis for our students and our society. The supreme court decision is scaring me. Will you be doing a follow through story on this? I can give you names of principals, teachers, parents to interview who are living it and not just talking about some topic that they don't understand. When's the last time you, the lawyers and the supreme court justices have been in the public schools?

Sent by Carrie Asmus | 2:55 PM ET | 06-28-2007

I think the answer is an expanded version of Schools of Choice, which we have here in Michigan. Students should be allowed to choose the school they want to go to. In the lawsuit, the problem was that the girl wanted to go to a high school with an orchestra and she was not allowed to because of her race. The problem with existing Schools of Choice is transportation; at present the parents must transport the student to the desired school. Under my suggested program, the state or the Intermediate School District (as we have in Michigan) would be responsible for transportation costs.
The other problem with schools of choice is that it is very easy under the present program for the more desirable schools to severely limit how many students they would accept. Under my program, there would be fewer limits. If the more desirable schools had more applicants than they can accommodate, then the federal government and/or the state would provide funding for extra school buildings.
Critics would say that this program would unfairly reduce student population at inner city schools, but my program would allow students of any race apply to any school they choose to go to and would get around the de facto segregation that we now have because of housing patterns.

Sent by David W. Stapel | 5:25 PM ET | 06-28-2007

The real problem is that our inner city school systems stink, plain and simple. They stink because a whole generation of parents have abnegated their reponsibility to parent, and they have left their childrens educations to teachers who are too burnt out just trying to stay safe and get home at night.

No court in the world can fix that situation.

Sent by feudi pandola | 3:44 PM ET | 06-29-2007

[quote]The bottom line is that the philosophy of Brown was gutted in this decision.[/quote]

I fundamentally disagree with this claim. Brown v Board was passed during a time when school boards gave Black schools used books and furniture from White schools and provided a fraction of funding to Black schools that they gave to Black. To argue in 2007 about "de facto" racial segregation is implicitly saying that Black schools are inherently inferior regardless of them being in the impoverished Vine City area of Atlanta or the relatively well off Prince Georges County in Maryland. I reject this claim in that the context which mandated Brown is not the case today.

Someone else above said that we need "economic balance" rather than racial. The fact is that with my own eyes I see that Black people too seek to "move up" in social class. Since school make up closely follows community make up it must me noted how middle class Blacks who have mobility are also departing certain community in which "bad elements" are moving in. Why on Earth would you volunteer your child to be a part of a social engineering project for their schools when they don't want to live next to certain people because of the negative social and cultural forces that they represent?

We as Black people are not going to be able to run from certain central truths. It is time to address the problems WITHIN that make certain majority Black schools anti-academic institutions. A different majority culture needs to be placed upon these schools which works to change certain destructive cultural elements into the fold rather than allowing it to take over the school and have the performance to plunge.

In my personal opinion the ruling was correct. The bulk of the focus needs to be on what the Black community is doing rather than what the Supreme Court is doing.

Sent by Ron B | 1:08 AM ET | 06-30-2007

Michael Steel like so many other upper-class black americans are dillusional. This is an economic issue as well as a race issue. First, white america has always held the purse strings and the power of who gets what. Never will a group of white americans voluntarily level the playing field between themselves and their children with all others minorities in this country, it is a conflict of interest. Which is why they move in the thousands to the suburbs and why laws were struck down to prevent the suburbs (which is where they live) from being integreted. It will not happen. 2nd, they knew this when the decided to bus black kids to the suburbs instead of the other way around. The inner-city schools are still underfunded and predominately minority - just as it was when I was going to school - somethings have changed, but not much and the little that was changed is being dismantled. Over the last 10-15 years, regressing the progress that was made. Because the money has been systematically removed from the city schools. So, if you are saying this is a "color-blind" society and roberts of the supreme court is saying if he says so, it will be. how do you make it a "color-blind" society.
how do make them color-blind, it isn't possible. It will never be equal as long as the group in charge have a low opinion of the people they are suppose to help. This problem is race, economics and class, it permiates everything. Look at Katrina - it was race, economics, class, and age. Every effort to integrate this society has been under attack and the laws have either been weakened, miss-interpreted (deliberately) to make it unacceptable to whites in the country or out-right hollowed out so it doesn't work, because white america has never really accepted integration of minorities, they want us to work - but have no interest in making our futures equal to theirs. Black America has been under attack, economically and socially - for a very long time, it's no accident that every ill in society is ascerbated in black society. The lady caller is typical of what white american's think, that black american parents - don't care about their children and don't teach them self-esteem, that it's not society's fault it's blacks for not being good parents and she really believes that all blacks are like this. So do you really think she is will to help? Please.

Sent by G.Simmons | 12:14 PM ET | 07-02-2007

Why will no one address the elephant in our living room--the many ill-behaved or unprepared students who populate classrooms across the urban school landscape? Try to teach in a classroom/school where 80% of one's time is spent addressing social pathologies of varying types, rather than course content. The few students who are prepared suffer tremendously. No one speaks to this issue, but to deny its significance as a factor in the education equation explains why the solutions are never correct. We must be honest and stop tiptoeing around this. Lacking resources and money won't change the classroom dynamic if, as a group, students haven't the desire, respect, or just decency to support their own learning success.

Sent by Candis Gillett | 1:58 PM ET | 07-02-2007