Before, the United States Supreme Court had ruled in the Swann v. Charlotte-Meckenburg Board of Education (1970) that bussing was an appropriate remedy to the ensuing racial imbalance problems in the school system. The aftermath of this ruling was to see schools in the United States integrating students from different races and social economic backgrounds so that each person in the country could get equal opportunity in education. This decision is related to the earlier ruling in the Green v. County School Board, in which the court had ruled that freedom of choice plan was insufficient to ensure that students from different racial backgrounds were integrated. Thus, the bussing policy was to involve buses transporting students from some geographical areas to schools in others so that they could ensure racially integrated classes. However, in the Milliken v. Bradley (1974), the United States Supreme Court overturned the ruling by clarifying between de facto and de jure segregations. In this regard, the court ruled that it was not the responsibility of schools to ensure desegregation across racial lines, unless if they deliberately engaged in policies that supported segregations (Rury, 2013).
Legal analysts have termed the ruling in the Miliken v. Bradley case to be at a larger extent political rather than legal. It allowed and motivated members of the white race and those in higher social economic status to move their children from urban schools to avoid desegregation. Consequently, the situation concentrated students from African American community in public schools that were in dire need of public funding. This impact was not only felt in Detroit, but in the entire country, as several similar rulings in other states also followed. Studies have reaffirmed these results in a national pattern whereby public urban schools all over the country have black students as the majority, while the surrounding suburban schools receive white students mostly (Alvarez, 2013; Rury, 2013).
Apparently, the legal and educational system of the US has failed to create a diverse and integrated education system. By allowing the court system to make rulings that interfere with efforts of desegregation, even those that do not involve forced busing, the legal system has failed to create a diverse and integrated environment for school children. The education system is now enduring racial discrimination where students from African American, Native American, Hispanic and Asian communities have been discriminated on their racial lines. Moreover, although women have not at large been segregated, one can note that they somewhat lag behind their male counterparts (Rury, 2013). Harry Brighouse has also noted that the education system face discrimination that result from socio-economic powers and religious views. In this regard, some schools are becoming much associated with certain religions or income classes (Brighouse, 2005).
While overturning the ruling in the Swann V. Charlotte-Meckenburg Board of Education, the Supreme Court declared that the education system was not responsible for ensuring that the school becomes desegregated unless it practices or endorses segregation policies. However what the ruling forgot was that the society can have a heavy impact on the outcome of the education system, and in turn the education system itself can be an agent of social change. Therefore, the judges could have realized that both education system and the society or the government needs proper policies on racial integration and equality so that everybody can have equal opportunities in education. Therefore apart from the Swann policy that the school should be an agent of racial segregation, the society and hence the government should also implement regulations that ensure that indeed education system is desegregated in terms of race and other social economic factors (Rury, 2013).
If the Supreme Court could not have overturned the Swann ruling, it would have reduced the state-mandated racial segregation. After the overturn, both National and State education administration authorities concerned themselves very much on rights of children to attend the already racially segregated schools (Rury, 2013). The ruling could have allowed substantial integration of students from different social-economic backgrounds so that the schools do not become identified with races, classes or ethnicity (Rury, 2013). National trends in academic achievement reveal that there are still bigger achievement gaps between members of different social economic backgrounds (Vanneman, et al., 2009). Rury(2013) notes that when a school like a society becomes well integrated from preschool to higher institutions, there is no doubt that integration among future citizens will be enhanced.
For the government and the society at large, they should implement policies that ensure educational equality and segregation, from preschool to higher education. This will eliminate the effects of discriminatory means involved at an advanced stage of education like high-stake testing to remove those from poor backgrounds (Rury, 2013). Brighouse (2005) has outlined that there are two concepts when it comes to schooling system: administration and pedagogy. If a criminal administration is supported by the central government to take over the school system it is eminent that it will not attain sound aims and purposes (Brighouse, 2005).To achieve the purpose and aims the school should be a place that learners engage in multiple ways of learning, learn to be self sufficient, acquire necessary tools to flourish in life and participate in public democratic process. Brighouse (2005) puts it straight that for the government to attain such objectives, it has to ensure that the education system is not segregated. In this way, it should stops funding religious schools. If the government wants to nurture citizenship and patriotism, it should protect the child from family and systemic coercions to follow particular paths in his life (Brighouse, 2005). Children should be left to grow autonomously in a wide range of alternatives, which is much assured when they are taught in an environment with a lot of diversity in races, ethnicities, economic classes and so forth (Brighouse, 2005). What the school can do is to impart skills so that learners can autonomously take the best alternative to develop in their life without being coerced by parents or discriminative educational system. Apart from having a rich environment for conceptual growth, the learners will be able to embrace each other as equal citizens, which is key in developing patriotism (Brighouse, 2005). The equality in learning would ensure that there are no disparities in academic achievement among learners from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and therefore there will be no doubt that all individuals from all backgrounds will have equal competitive advantage in getting employment and sharing the wealth of their country (Brighouse, 2005).
References
Alvarez, S. (2013).How court's bus ruling sealed differences in Detroit schools. npr.
Retrieved on 14 December 2014 http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/11/19/245970277/how-courts-bus-ruling-sealed-differences-in-detroit-schools
Brighouse, H. (2005).On Education. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
Rury, J.L. (2013).Education and Social Change: Contours in the History of American
Schooling. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
Vanneman, A. et al. (2009).How Black and White Students in Public Schools Perform in
Mathematics and Reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Washington: National Centre for Education Statistics.
