The Problems with Economic Integration and Controlled Choice

Following a 2007 Supreme Court decision restricting the use of race for school assignments, school boards desiring greater diversity turned to economic integration, meaning equalizing the proportion of low-income students in each school in a district. Among other claimed benefits, most advocates believe economic integration will reduce the achievement gap between low- and high-income students. The integration is often accomplished using "controlled choice," a method of assigning students to schools by giving parents some degree of "choice" among the public schools in their district. In larger school districts, controlled-choice plans can generate controversy and middle-class flight among parents who prefer neighborhood schools, similar to the "white flight" observed in earlier decades when mandatory busing was used to attain racially balanced schools. A review of controlled-choice plans in six large districts in North Carolina, Kentucky, and Florida shows considerable and ongoing higher-income and white losses in these districts. While other demographic forces cannot be ruled out (e.g., urban to suburban movement for reasons unrelated to schools), neither can the unpopularity of controlled choice. More important, none of these districts has demonstrated significant closing of achievement gaps between higher- and lower-income students, one of the main justifications for these plans.