In light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on two racial integration cases from Louisville, Kentucky, and Seattle, Washington, the authors explore the mismatch between the rationale of the Court’s majority in declaring these desegregation plans unconstitutional and the social science research on the long-term effects of such plans on the adults who had desegregated school experiences as children. They conclude that two powerful and intertwined themes found in both new and existing research – that racial discrimination and its legacies still exist in the form of “structural inequality” and the “diversity rationale” for bringing children of different backgrounds together to learn – both support the efforts of the two school districts in these cases.

The 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education, caused many in the United States to contemplate the value of public policies that flowed from that decision, especially the desegregation of public schools. Over the last half-century we have received mixed messages about whether such efforts were worth the trouble.

Based on interviews with policy makers in six states, this article examines the policies of charter school reform and maintains that the apparent bipartisan support for these more autonomous schools masks opposing viewpoints about the purpose of this reform.

A response to Michelle Fine's article, [Ap]parent Involvement: Reflections on Parents, Power, and Urban Public Schools. & Responses.