Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: School Desegregation and Resegregation in Charlotte

by Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, Stephen Samuel Smith, Amy Hawn Nelson

Overview

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow provides a compelling analysis of the forces and choices that have shaped the trend toward the resegregation of public schools. By assembling a wide range of contributors—historians, sociologists, economists, and education scholars—the editors provide a comprehensive view of a community’s experience with desegregation and economic development. Here we see resegregation through the lens of Charlotte, North Carolina, once a national model of successful desegregation, and home of the landmark Swann desegregation case, which gave rise to school busing.
 
This book recounts the last forty years of Charlotte’s desegregation and resegregation, putting education reform in political and economic context. Within a decade of the Swanncase, the district had developed one of the nation’s most successful desegregation plans, measured by racial balance and improved academic outcomes for both black and white students. However, beginning in the 1990s, this plan was gradually dismantled. Today, the level of resegregation in Charlotte has almost returned to what it was prior to 1971. At the core of Charlotte’s story is the relationship between social structure and human agency, with an emphasis on how yesterday’s decisions and actions define today’s choices.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612507569
Publisher:	Harvard Education Press
Publication date:	02/01/2015
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Roslyn Arlin Mickelson is a professor of sociology, public policy, and women’s and gender studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Stephen Samuel Smith is a professor of political science at Winthrop University. Amy Hawn Nelson is the director of research for the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and the director of the Institute for Social Capital, Inc.

Table of Contents

Contents

Map of Mecklenburg County vii
Preface ix

CHAPTER 1
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Structure and Agency in the Resegregation of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools 1
Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, Stephen Samuel Smith, and Amy Hawn Nelson

CHAPTER 2
The Price of Success
The Political Economy of Education, Desegregation, and Development in Charlotte 17
Stephen Samuel Smith

CHAPTER 3
A Spirit of Togetherness
Desegregation and Community at West Charlotte High School 39
Pamela Grundy

CHAPTER 4
“Academic Genocide” on the West Side
West Charlotte High School in the Post-Swann Era 53
Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, Stephen Samuel Smith, Stephanie Southworth, and S. Lore´n Trull

CHAPTER 5
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in Context
Racial and Economic Imbalance at the District and State Level, 1994–2012 69
Charles T. Clotfelter, Helen F. Ladd, and Jacob L. Vigdor

CHAPTER 6
A Study in Contrasts
Race, Politics, and School Assignment Policies in Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Wake County, North Carolina 85
Toby L. Parcel, Joshua A. Hendrix, and Andrew J. Taylor

CHAPTER 7
Residential Choice as School Choice
The Impact of Unitary Status in Charlotte-Mecklenburg 101
David Liebowitz and Lindsay C. Page

CHAPTER 8
From Black and White to Technicolor
Demographic Change in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools 119
Michelle Plaisance, Elizabeth Morrell, and Paul McDaniel

CHAPTER 9
A Long Path to Success
Integration and Community Engagement at Shamrock Gardens Elementary School 137
Amy Hawn Nelson

CHAPTER 10
The Law’s Delay
Pursuing School Diversity and Equity in Leandro’s Shadow 157
Mark Dorosin and Luke Largess

CHAPTER 11
Obligation and Opportunity
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Face the Future 173
Stephen Samuel Smith, Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, and Amy Hawn Nelson

APPENDIX A
Terminology 203

APPENDIX b
List of Supplementary Materials 207

Notes 209
Acknowledgments 241
About the Editors 243
About the Contributors 245 
Index 249

Editorial Reviews

“Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow paints a vivid portrait of the changing realities and daunting challenges facing school districts sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education. This careful analysis of the barriers to opportunity and limits on mobility point toward larger structural forces that must be confronted if we are to fulfill Brown’s promise of equality.” — John A. Powell, director, Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, and The Robert D. Haas Chancellor’s Chair in Equity and Inclusion, University of California, Berkeley

“Mickelson, Smith, and Nelson remind us why school desegregation matters for citizens and scholars alike. Their analyses show both the promise and the tragedy of using schools to solve America’s problems.” — Jennifer Hochschild, Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government, and professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University

“Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow is a model of interdisciplinary policy analysis covering two long policy cycles of desegregation and resegregation. This excellent work poses important questions about the racial future of our metropolitan society.” — Gary Orfield, professor of education, law, political science, and urban planning, and codirector, The Civil Rights Project, University of California, Los Angeles

“This book is a cautionary tale—far less about a failed experience than about a rejected success—that deserves serious attention by all who worry about the future of our increasingly diverse democracy.” — Jeannie Oakes, Presidential Professor Emerita in Educational Equity, University of California, Los Angeles

From the Publisher