Difficult from the Start: Implementing the Brown Decision in the Kansas City, Missouri Public Schools

  • The negligible impact of the desegregation plan in Kansas city was clearly linked to the decision to retain the transfer policy. Transfer stymied integration by providing parents with an avenue that could be accessed in order to avoid sending a child to an integrated school.
  • Reluctance on the part of the districts administration to reassess and revise the original plan was perhaps their most egregious shortcoming.
  • Busing and magnet schools were ways to combat the inefficient desegregation mechanisms.