Divided we fail

This work examines why school desegregation, despite its success in closing the achievement gap, was never embraced wholeheartedly in the black community as a remedy for racial inequality. In 2007, a court case originally filed in Louisville, Kentucky, was argued before the Supreme Court and officially ended the era of school desegregation, changing how schools across America handle race and undermining the most important civil rights cases of the last century. This was not the first federal lawsuit that challenged school desegregation, but it was the first, and only one brought by African Americans. In this examination of the Louisville case, the author, a journalist returns to her hometown to understand why black families in the most racially integrated school system in America led the charge against desegregation. Weaving together the voices of parents, students, and teachers who fought for and against desegregation, her narrative upends assumptions about the history of busing and its aftermath. Desegregation corresponded with unprecedented gains in black achievement and economic progress, but in Louisville, those gains often came at a cost: traditionally black schools that had been bastions of community identity and pride faced closure; hundreds of black teachers lost their jobs; parents were helpless as their children's futures were dictated by racial quotas. In illuminating the often overlooked human stories behind this fraught legal struggle, the author reveals the difficult compromises forced on the black community in the wake of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. This book is an account of one community's struggle that has important lessons for the next generation of education reformers. By taking a close look at where desegregation went wrong, the author uncovers problems with a new set of education ideas, including school choice, charter schools, and test-based accountability systems. But she also reminds us not to forget desegregation's many successes as we look for ways to close the achievement gap for minority students.