Challenging Boundaries, Changing Fate? Reconsidering Post-Milliken Policy Options for Urban Districts and Parents

• In Event: Forty Years After Milliken v. Bradley I (1974): Looking Back to Move Forward

Abstract

In the two decades leading up to Milliken, U.S. metropolitan areas experienced a dramatic demographic shift. Prior to the 1950s, most residents in metro areas lived within large urban cities; by the time the Milliken decision was handed down in 1974, suburbs had expanded significantly, and a significant racial and economic divide had grown across urban/suburban school district lines (Holme & Finnigan, in press). The Milliken decision helped suburbs to protect their wealth and resource advantages, while pushing urban districts in many of the more “fragmented” metropolitan contexts, like Detroit, into fiscal and economic decline (Orfield, 1994/1995; Ryan, 2011).

This paper examines the contemporary implications of the Milliken decision for urban districts, and considers the options available regionally to combat the dilemmas that Milliken created. This paper is based upon a comprehensive review of the research literature on urban demographic change and school desegregation law, as well as a review of newspaper articles and district policy documents.

We begin with a discussion of the demographic, fiscal, and political challenges imposed by the Milliken decision on urban districts, illustrating how the Milliken decision, combined with suburban migration, left many urban districts and inner ring suburban districts with a reduced tax base, few middle class families, and relatively little political power (Orfield, 2002; Ryan, 2011). Next, we examine the political and policy implications of the Milliken decision, discussing how the major policy approaches to urban school failure over the past several decades have placed most of the blame on urban districts themselves, rather than the boundaries that constrain them fiscally, demographically, and politically (Holme & Finnigan, in press; Wells et al., 2009). We describe how existing policies and laws have largely foiled efforts of the parents who have sought to cross boundaries in such contexts to enroll their children in higher performing suburban schools (Holme & Wells, 2008). In the third part of the paper, we examine recent efforts by urban districts to fight against the restrictions that Milliken placed upon them- seeking to change their fate by challenging the boundaries that have hemmed them in. Two cases are discussed in depth: the 2009 efforts by the Omaha Public Schools to annex 21 suburban schools (Holme & Diem, in press); and the recent self-imposed dissolution of the Memphis City School System and merger with the surrounding Shelby County system. The subsequent efforts of suburbs to fight these boundary challenges are also discussed.

We conclude with a discussion of the legal and policy options for urban districts in a post-Milliken context. This paper provides critical insights into the “new” policy strategies to address segregation occurring across the country, from recent movements by districts to explore their options through dissolution (i.e. Pittsburg and Milwaukee); and movements by families to gain better opportunities through court-imposed dis-accreditation (i.e. Kansas City, and St. Louis County public school districts). It considers the potential of regional solutions, like those embodied in some inter-district plans (Finnigan, et al, under review), and considers various models of regional educational policy solutions.

Authors

• Jennifer Jellison Holme, The University of Texas - Austin

• Kara S. Finnigan, University of Rochester

• Sarah Diem, University of Missouri

• Stephen Douglas Spring, The University of Texas