Can Desegregation Alone Close the Achievement Gap?

By David J. Armor

The campus is spectacular to behold. Quality has not been spared, from its modern classroom buildings with 800 computer terminals for 1,000 students, to its state-of-the-art athletic facilities--Olympic-size swimming pool, weight-training and gymnastics rooms, indoor track--complete with full-time coaches and trainers. An elite and well-endowed private college? No, this is Central High School, a predominantly minority school in the heart of downtown Kansas City, Mo.

This $34 million edifice is only a small part of the most lavish court-ordered desegregation plan in the nation. The 1986 plan was designed not only to integrate the Kansas City schools, but also to correct deficiencies in facilities and programs at formerly all-black schools. The plan has cost Kansas City and the state of Missouri $1.4 billion so far, and a similar plan in St. Louis has cost another $1.7 billion. Three-fourths of these funds, or over $2 billion, have come from the state.

In a 5-to-4 decision on June 12, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed lower-court decisions that had led to this unprecedented reconstruction of the Kansas City school system. (See Education Week, 6/21/95.) The purpose of this immense investment, according to the U.S. District Court that ordered it, was twofold: to improve integration in city schools by attracting white students from suburban school districts, and to correct educational deficiencies of city black students--evidenced in part by low achievement-test scores. The lower court expected that improved integration and programmatic enhancements would raise black test scores, thereby closing or at least reducing...