When the Fences Come Down : Twenty-First-Century Lessons from Metropolitan School Desegregation

Siegel-hawley, Genevieve

ISBN 10: 1469627833 / ISBN 13: 9781469627830

Published by The University of North Carolina Press, 2016

About this Item

Unread book in perfect condition.

Seller Inventory # 25232099

Bibliographic Details

• Title: When the Fences Come Down : Twenty-First-Century Lessons from Metropolitan School Desegregation
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1469627833
• ISBN 13: 9781469627830
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

How we provide equal educational opportunity to an increasingly diverse, highly urbanized student population is one of the central concerns facing our nation. As Genevieve Siegel-Hawley argues in this thought-provoking book, within our metropolitan areas we are currently allowing a labyrinthine system of school-district boundaries to divide students — and opportunities — along racial and economic lines. Rather than confronting these realities, though, most contemporary educational policies focus on improving schools by raising academic standards, holding teachers and students accountable through test performance, and promoting private-sector competition. Siegel-Hawley takes us into the heart of the metropolitan South to explore what happens when communities instead focus squarely on overcoming the educational divide between city and suburb.

Based on evidence from metropolitan school desegregation efforts in Richmond, Virginia; Louisville, Kentucky; Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina; and Chattanooga, Tennessee, between 1990 and 2010, Siegel-Hawley uses quantitative methods and innovative mapping tools both to underscore the damages wrought by school-district boundary lines and to raise awareness about communities that have sought to counteract them. She shows that city-suburban school desegregation policy is related to clear, measurable progress on both school and housing desegregation. Revisiting educational policies that in many cases were abruptly halted — or never begun — this book will spur an open conversation about the creation of the healthy, integrated schools and communities critical to our multiracial future.

About the Author

Genevieve Siegel-Hawley is assistant professor of educational leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University.