Jefferson County Tries New Plan to Keep Schools Desegregated

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, used the language of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision which ended legal segregation in public schools to strike down affirmative action by busing and hasten the de facto resegregation of public schools that has been happening across the nation since the early 1980s. Jefferson County public schools were the test case. Since then, the school board has been trying to come up with a new plan that will keep racial/ethnic/ and income diversity in our schools and still pass constitutional muster with this rightwing Supreme Court. Today, they unveiled a new plan, based on geography and income that they hope will accomplish the same goals. It is not a simple plan because all simple plans, such as only using neighborhood assignments, simply hasten resegregation. Now comes the time for public hearings and then final approval on 12 May. I hope it works.

One can see the full plan, including, maps and Q & A in today's Louisville Courier-Journal. If this works and is as accepted by the community as our previous school assignment method, I hope it will be adopted across the nation. The resegregation of our public schools is part of the regression in this nation which keeps a large African-American and Latino underclass. It must end. I benefitted from going to integrated schools (some of them where I was the minority) and so have my children. We live in one of the few neighborhoods in Louisville where there is noticeable racial/ethnic diversity--but it is far from Sesame Street perfection. If the schools were to go to strict neighborhood assignment, my kids would have much more mono-cultural friendships and education experiences--and that would be tragic. We need to be helping our children live in an increasingly multi-cultural 21st C. world--not reverting to the 1950s! Let's all pray this works.