- The great divide between Black and Latino cities and mostly White suburbs could eventually pull both down
- St. Louis inter-district plan is a school choice program geared toward helping inner-city students who want to leave their neighborhood schools
- St. Louis’ plan of busing inner-city minorities to schools in White suburbia is a political compromise between a judicial mandate to remedy decades of inferior education for Black, and Whites who insist on sending their children to locally-controlled suburban schools
- Black children choose to be bused out to the suburbs
- Only used in suburbs with less than 25% Black population
- The main cost of this plan is significant transportation costs, but it really doesn’t cost anymore to educate black children outside of the city than it would to give them an equal education in the city
- During the 1995-96 school year, more than 12,700 Black students from the city were enrolled in suburban schools, and almost 1,500 White students from the suburbs attended magnet schools in the city of St. Louis, resulting in a high level of desegregation.
- Most of the city students attend their neighborhood schools because their parents never said they could not. Offering these students the choice of higher-status schools will not free them from the fear and insecurity they face in a world that places them at the bottom of the social structure
- The efficacy of the transfer parents distinguishes them from the city and returns parents in ways that will no doubt have a lasting impact on the lives of their children
- Educators at shcools supporting Black transfer students say that the arrival of these students has made for more creative teaching and has benefitted everbody
- Even though some White students had bad experiences with some of the Black transfer students, they argue against the end of the desegregation program; it is popular with the residents and they want it to succeed
- In order to assess the impact of school desegregation policy on the life chances of Black adults, researchers and policy makers need to focus on long-term social and economic outcomes
- More information needs to be given out because segregation is perpetuated across generations because Blacks and Latinos lack access to informatiion about and entrance to desegregated institutions or employment