School Assignment After Parents Involved In Community Schools v. Seattle School District, No. 1: How Race and Income Desegregation Relate to Minority Student Educational Attainment in Seattle
Year: 2008
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: After the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, several public school districts began to adopt plans to desegregate their schools. Without a court order, some school districts such as Seattle Public Schools chose to implement desegregation programs. Several studies evaluating these voluntary and mandatory desegregation programs suggest that school desegregation is positively associated with improved educational attainment of black and Hispanic students. In 1998, Seattle Public Schools adopted a program that allowed students to attend any school in the district, but allowed the district some control in student placement if the racial demographics of each school did not reflect the demographics of the district as a whole. In the 2007 case, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, No. 1, the United States Supreme Court declared the Seattle Public Schools' use of race in school assignment unconstitutional. However, because of potential differences in resources, teacher quality, and the social connections of peers and staff between predominantly minority schools and schools with larger white student populations, using race in school assignment could act as an important tool to narrow the gap between the educational attainment of white and minority students. This study examines the relationship between Seattle's plan and two outcomes for minority students: dropping out of high school and graduating on time. Additionally, it examines how much racial diversity an income desegregation program can create, and whether there is a relationship between a potential income desegregation program and the attainment outcomes. The analysis reveals that Hispanic students in Seattle public high schools who attended desegregated schools during the program had lower dropout rates and higher on-time graduation rates than Hispanic students who attended segregated schools. However, black and Hispanic students who attended income desegregated schools do not experience different dropout or on-time graduation rates than their counterparts in income segregated schools. Additionally, using an income-based desegregation can still produce a racially segregated school system.
Author: Tamica Daniel
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W583505769