That it only moderately alters test scores is also true, but that is far, far from being the same thing as a failure.
Busing is largely out of favor because it’s inconvenient for parents. Even I, who live in Berkeley precisely because it still buses-to-desegregate its students, was relieved when the school lottery meant my daughter would attend our nearest school.
https://tcf.org/content/facts/the-benefits-of-socioeconomica...
Not only were they more successful in school, they were more successful in life as well. A 2011 study by the Berkeley public policy professor Rucker C. Johnson concludes that black youths who spent five years in desegregated schools have earned 25 percent more than those who never had that opportunity. Now in their 30s and 40s, they’re also healthier — the equivalent of being seven years younger.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/opinion/sunday/integration...
Desegregation and Black Dropout Rates J, Guryan. 2001. has some good data on the decline in black dropout rates in districts with integration.
Why I don't find that evidence convincing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13904403
The fact that the gap is larger in segregated districts is difficult to interpret without knowing if the comparison is to the population as a whole (i.e. blacks in the district to whites as a whole) or within the district (i.e. blacks in the district to whites in the district). I'd also want to know if how those districts compared to other districts. Were these high achieving schools? Low achieving? Somewhere in the middle?
But I mean let's be honest here, are you really going to accept that integration worked? I'd like to believe it but experience tells me probably not. Because of the backfire effect I don't think you're likely to be convinced by some guy on the internet quoting social science research (especially since no research is perfect.) So here, let me give you a more human element. Here's three This American Life episodes, the first two are explicitly about integration and the third is about kids from a poor, public school visiting a rich, private school which is slightly less topical but helps to get the point across I think. Just listen and consider please.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/...
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/563/...
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/550/...
http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/13-miss-buchanans-per...
there's different types of 'good' and 'bad'. for example, the whole IQ thing came into the light in the UK when poor Jewish kids from the ghetto (bad) were clearly outperforming their non-Jewish counterparts from more affluent (good) neighborhoods.
Good kids grow up in a different environment. The consequences of not knowing to handle oneself around "bad" kids are very high. There is no doubt that on average "bad" kids are much bigger bullies with lower empathy.
The consequences of not knowing how to conduct oneself around good kids as a "bad" kid are much lower in severity. For the most part, the parents of good kids set limits to the aggression of their children. For example, the biggest social rejects at my upper middle class schools weren't ever really bullied. People pitied the complete rejects and most people thought anyone who would bully the rejects is a complete douchebag.
I can't imagine how the social rejects or even the normal nerdy kids at my high school would have fared at a "bad" school.
Then there is the minority immigrant issue. Segregation is good for certain minority groups that do not have the language skills and cultural knowledge to integrate into America. They segregate themselves into a separate community that can provide support for its members. Desegregating these communities and their children will have negative effects.
The children of these immigrants will have the worst time dealing with the "bad" kids because they may have stunted language skills and lack cultural knowledge and context to be able to effectively navigate bad situations.
And to get a better picture of the winners and losers:
- > 90% of African Americans are born in America (and presumably have parents, family and connections who know English and understand American culture).
- Spanish is ubiquitous in the USA and the Hispanic population is huge. Hispanic people have a much lower need to congregate into a community compared to other minorities.
Consider bussing kids from 'good' places to bad and from 'bad' to good. See after how long their outcomes become equivalent. Do so at different grade levels to measure the convergence time versus age of displacement.
And now for the actual experiment: how do you impactfully present such results? I assume no outcome. Just the existence of an outcome.
I posit that priceless data would be worthless in American society.