Challenges to Districts' Efforts to Sustain Voluntary Integration Programs: A Collective Case Study

• In Event: How Voluntary Integration Works: Contemporary Political, Policy, and Practical Considerations

Abstract

Objectives: This paper aims to address the following research question: What are the challenges to school districts’ efforts to sustain voluntary integration programs? The research for this paper explores three districts’ efforts to ensure their voluntary integration programs improve racial and socio-economic equity in access to educational opportunity, while addressing political, legal, and demographic pressures and fostering public support for their programs.

Perspective/Theoretical Framework: This paper explores challenges to districts’ voluntary integration plans through the perspective of interest convergence theory (Bell, 1980), which holds that minority groups’ needs will be met to the extent that they intersect with those of the majority.

Methods: This paper entails a collective case study of three urban districts in three states: California, Massachusetts, and New York. The cases serve an instrumental purpose (Stake, 2000) to provide insights into challenges that districts encounter in sustaining voluntary integration programs. Each district has had a voluntary integration in place for at least 25 years, but the districts vary regarding state and local policy, demography, and measures of student diversity used in setting enrollment targets.

Data Sources: Data for this study come from 12 interviews with district personnel and community group members across three case study districts. Interview data are supplemented with district demographics from federal sources; documents from the Office of Civil Rights; news articles; documents available on school district websites; and, videos enabling observation of local school board meetings. Data analysis has proceeded via initial memoing following interviews, then by the development of inductive codes for challenges, among these: parental access to information about school assignment, the influence of charter schools, and competition from private schools.
Results: Our analysis reveals several common challenges across districts, including the persistence of within-school segregation via disparities in gifted and talented programs and AP courses. In line with prior research (e.g., U.S. General Accounting Office, 2018), there were also disparities in discipline, particularly for African American students. In addition, privileged parents across the districts sought to influence the programs in ways that benefitted their families. As one interviewee said, privileged parents, “want integration if it’s brought to them.” Because of these parents’ options to exit districts’ schools, it is challenging for district personnel to modify plans in ways that may be perceived as infringing on the choices of privileged families, as in, for example, the narrowing of sibling- or proximity preferences.

Scholarly Significance: With limited leadership from the federal government, voluntary district-level integration may be our best hope to reverse the re-segregation trends of the last 30 years. Too often, however, districts pursue integration in isolation from one another, without the benefit of learning from the common challenges that each encounter. This paper will help districts understand and respond to common challenges and thereby help provide meaningful integrated learning experiences for all students.

Authors

• Mindy L Kornhaber, The Pennsylvania State University - University Park

• Erica Frankenberg, The Pennsylvania State University

• Peter Piazza, The Pennsylvania State University

• Jeremy Anderson, The Pennsylvania State University

• Tyler James Snyder, The Pennsylvania State University