Integration
With the constitutionality of court ordered racial desegregation under fire, the debate over integration in our public schools has shifted significantly to focus much more on socioeconomic status. According to Kahlenburg, “Today, in city after city, court-ordered racial desegregation is being dismantled. Even voluntary racial integration efforts, in places like Arlington, Virginia, and Montgomery County, Maryland, are being struck down by the courts. As our nation becomes more and more ethnically diverse, the traditional tools for promoting school integration are becoming less and less effective.” The traditional tools of racial integration are nearly obsolete these days, whether people choose to recognize it or not, our countries educational system is failing to uphold the very ethics and diversity our country holds onto so dearly. The solution to this problem, and the only real way to achieve equitable education across the country, is socioeconomic integration. Two of these three articles focus almost solely on the pros of socioeconomic integration, and the third article hints on the downfalls of such an overarching change in tight knit communities. The debate seems pretty straightforward when approached at a distance but once such an issue hits home and actually affects a community directly, things get muddled up very quickly. This is due to the fact that the main stakeholders are the children who are directly affected by the change and the secondary stakeholders include passionate parents and teachers. These three articles all give different arguments, ranging from absolute support for socioeconomic integration, to a more middle ground, right down to fervent opposition. The most interesting part about these articles, however, is not the ways in which their stance on socioeconomic integration differs but rather the subtle ways in which their arguments change depending on their given stance.
Each of the following articles puts forward an...