Advertisement

The Urban Review

, Volume 50, Issue 4, pp 584–603 | Cite as

Policy Implications for School Desegregation and School Choice in Chicago

  • Dionne Danns
Article

Abstract

School desegregation in Chicago was derived from the implementation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This article follows the formation of this policy to its implementation in Chicago. First, the federal government used the Civil Rights Act to garner school desegregation. Then, the Chicago Board of Education created desegregation plans for Chicago Public Schools which included school choice options. Finally, the article uses the oral histories of 68 graduates of three Chicago public high schools to demonstrate how the policy was utilized. The entire process reveals the continuation of institutional racism as school desegregation in Chicago was effectively limited as only a few Black and Latino students benefited from school desegregation.

Keywords

School desegregation School choice policy Policy implementation Oral history 

References

  1. Anderson, A. B., & Pickering, G. W. (1986). Confronting the color line: The broken promise of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
  2. André-Bechely, L. (2005). Could it be otherwise? Parents and the inequalities of public school choice. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  3. Balfanz, R., & Legters, N. (2004). Locating the dropout crisis: Which high schools produce the nation’s dropouts? Where are they located? Who attends them? Johns Hopkins University, Report 79, September. Retrieved March 16, 2016. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED484525.pdf
  4. Chicago Board of Education. (1982). Comprehensive student assignment plan.  Chicago: Harold Washington Library, Municipal Reference Collection.Google Scholar
  5. Chicago Board of Education. (1985). Racial/ethnic survey: Students as of October 31, 1985. ERIC ED, 266, 216.Google Scholar
  6. Chicago Public Schools. (1990). Chicago high school dropout profile: A report on the class of 1988. Chicago Board of Education Archives, Box Dept. of Research, Evaluation and Planning, School Dropouts.Google Scholar
  7. Danns, D. (2003). Something better for our children: Black organizing in Chicago Public Schools, 1963–1971. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  8. Danns, D. (2014). Desegregating Chicago’s public schools: Policy implementation, politics and protests, 1965-1985. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Halpern, S. C. (1995). On the limits of the law: The ironic legacy of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
  10. Hess, G. A., Warden, C. A., Korte, L., & Loukidis, L. (1987). Who benefits from desegregation: A review of the Chicago desegregation program 1980 to 1986. Chicago: Panel on Public School Policy and Finance.Google Scholar
  11. Hirsch, A. R. (1983). Making the second ghetto: Race & housing in Chicago, 1940–1960. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
  12. Homel, M. W. (1984). Down from equality: Black Chicagoans and the public schools, 19201941. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
  13. Lauerman, C. (1975). ‘Elitist’ tag hung on new school. Chicago Tribune, April 9, p. B3.Google Scholar
  14. Levinson, B. A. U., & Sutton, M. (2001). Introduction: Policy as/in practice—A sociocultural approach to the study of educational policy. In M. Sutton & B. A. U. Sutton (Eds.), Policy as practice: Toward a comparative sociocultural analysis of educational policy (pp. 1–22). Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing.Google Scholar
  15. Moore, C., & Levine, D. U. (1977). Whitney Young Magnet High School of Chicago and urban renewal. Planning and Changing, 7(Winter), 148–154.Google Scholar
  16. Orfield, G. (1969). The reconstruction of southern education: The schools and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. New York: Wiley-Interscience.Google Scholar
  17. Pattillo, M. (2015). Everyday politics of school choice in the Black community. Du Bois Review, 12(1), 41–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. Phillippo, K. L., & Griffin, B. (2016). The social geography of choice: neighborhoods’ role in students’ navigation of school choice policy in Chicago. Urban Review, 48, 668–695.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. Rury, J. L. (1999). Race, space, and the politics of Chicago’s Public Schools: Benjamin Willis and the tragedy of urban education”. History of Education Quarterly, 39(Spring), 117–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  20. Samson, R. J. (2012). Great American city: Chicago and the enduring neighborhood effect. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. San Miguel, G., Jr. (2013). Chicana/o Struggles for Education: Activism in the Community. College Station: Texas A&M.Google Scholar
  22. Satter, B. (2009). Family properties: Race, real estate, and the exploitation of Black urban America. New York: Metropolitan Books.Google Scholar
  23. Seligman, A. I. (2005). Block by block: Neighborhoods and public policy on Chicago’s West Side. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
  24. Sommer, B. W., & Quinlan, M. K. (2009). The oral history manual (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.Google Scholar
  25. Spear, A. H. (1967). Black Chicago: The making of a Negro ghetto, 1890–1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
  26. Student desegregation plan for the Chicago Public Schools: Annual desegregation review, 1982–83. (1983).Google Scholar
  27. The Chicago Fact Book Consortium. (1984). Local community fact book. Chicago: University of Illinois.Google Scholar
  28. The Crisis. (1958). De Facto segregation in Chicago Public Schools. 65(February), 87–93.Google Scholar
  29. Tzeggai, F. (2016). Defining racial equity in Chicago’s segregated schools: the complicated legacy of desegregation reform for urban education policy. Institute for the Study of Societal Issues Working Papers.Google Scholar
  30. Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center. (1990). A handbook of information for the North Central Visitation Committee.Google Scholar
  31. Wells, A. S., Holme, J. J., Revilla, A. T., & Atanda, A. K. (2009). Both sides now: The story of school desegregation’s graduates. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
  32. Whitney Young High School. (2005). ‘A bridge to the world’: celebrating 30 years of academic excellence. Chicago Board of Education Archives.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Indiana University BloomingtonBloomingtonUSA

Personalised recommendations