Urban Leaders Assess Methods for Integrating Schools

Nashville, Tenn.

The Jefferson County, Ky., school district, set back by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling invalidating its student-assignment plan, is exploring other remaining legal avenues in its bid to maintain racially integrated schools, its superintendent said recently.

Sheldon Berman said the high court might have sidelined one potent integration strategy—assigning individual students to schools based on their race—but his district is investigating other race-conscious means that are still available under the June 28 ruling, such as redrawing attendance boundaries.

“The court took away one tool. We have to maximize the others,” he told educators gathered to hear five urban district leaders discuss what lies ahead for school diversity since the Supreme Court found the student-assignment systems in Jefferson County and Seattle to be unconstitutional. The Nov. 2 panel was part of the annual conference of the Council of the Great City Schools,...