Washington
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted last week to proceed with a controversial school-desegregation study after two consultants strongly endorsed the project.
The study--which focuses on “white flight” from desegregated school districts--is “perhaps the most important research activity” the commission could undertake, Eric A. Hanushek, professor of economics and political science at the University of Rochester, told commission members.
“It would seem very shortsighted to discontinue such a promising endeavor at this time,” he said.
And the present contractor on the $475,000 study, Unicon Research Corporation, is “very well suited” for the project’s “primary analytical tasks,” Mr. Hanushek said.
Mr. Hanushek, a former deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office, and Peter Mieszkowski, professor of economics at Rice University, were hired by the commission to examine the study after it was attacked by Gary Orfield, a member of the project’s advisory committee who resigned in October. (See Education Week, Oct. 30, 1985.)
Among other criticisms, Mr. Orfield questioned the contractor’s qualifications and the political viewpoints of some advisory panelists.
Mary Frances Berry, one of the commissioners dissenting in the 5- to-3 vote to continue the study, contended that the commission had not thoroughly investigated the issues before making its decision. She maintained that the study would be “a farce” and that it would be used as a policy statement “to say school desegregation should not be pursued.”
Another commissioner, John H. Bunzel, said he was “enthusiastic” about the project, which he said “has the potential of becoming one of the most important studies in this area.”
Three commission meetings over the past several months have been devoted to discussions of the study, with academicians and researchers weighing in on both sides of the issue.
Agreed To Investigate
At December’s meeting, Mr. Orfield, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, persuaded the commissioners to investigate the project.
He argued that there were a number of flaws in the study, including “the lack of necessary professional skills in the contractor’s staff, the strong ideological tilt in the key leadership positions of the study, the lack of fair treatment of those who were not antibusing activists on the advisory committee, and the exceedingly narrow focus of the research as it is now defined.”
Authorized by the commission in 1983, the study originally was intended to examine several aspects of school desegregation, including magnet schools and the impact of desegregation on both white and minority students.
At the commission’s first meeting in 1984 following its reorganization by the Reagan Administration, the project’s focus was narrowed to concentrate on the extent and causes of “white flight"--the departure of white families from school districts undergoing desegregation.
The study includes on-site visits to 40 districts, survey questionnaires, and the collection of census data, enrollment records, and existing research on school desegregation. The report was originally expected to be completed in June, but will probably not be available until later in the year, according to a commission staff member.
Expertise of Contractors
Much of the controversy has centered on the quality of the initial data collection by the original contractor, System Development Corporation, and the desegregation expertise of Unicon, which purchased the study contract from System Development. Both firms are based in California. Mr. Orfield has maintained that the contract was transferred without consultation with the entire advisory committee.
Mr. Mieszkowski said he agreed with Mr. Orfield that the early data collection by System Development “was not very successful.”
Both Mr. Mieszkowski and Mr. Hanushek, however, disagreed with Mr. Orfield’s assessment of Unicon’s qualifications for the project.
“Unicon is relatively small, but it has a very powerful analytical capability,” Mr. Hanushek told the commission. Although the firm has no experience with desegregation plans, “this deficiency has been corrected,” Mr. Hanushek said, through the hiring of J. Michael Ross, a desegregation consultant based here.
Mr. Ross, a former member of the study’s advisory panel, has been described by Mr. Orfield as one of several panelists biased against mandatory busing. Mr. Mieszkowski, however, noted that Mr. Ross’s role in the project “is to gather information from legal records.”
“It is very difficult to see how [Mr. Ross’s] interpretation of the facts and dating of certain events can be significantly biased,” Mr. Mieszkowski said.
Mr. Mieszkowski further defended the impartiality of the study, saying that Finis Welch, chairman of Unicon, is “a careful, objective, nonpartisan researcher.”
