I think randomization plus weighting for geographic distance could work. The issue with busing was never the actual busing, and there are plenty of places (like my hometown) where parents send their kids further out to ensure that they attend a school that is majority their race rather than the local neighborhood school.

I lived in Cambridge, MA, and they have successfully desegregated their schools with a similar approach that kept transportation very low and remained a popular plan with most parents (75% approval income over $100k, ~95% approval income under $75k).

In another place I lived, the top public magnet school was ~95% black. White parents pretty much universally refused to send their kids there, but would send their kids to a different magnet that was further away.

The "underlying socioeconomic realities" are often overstated compared to the unfortunate, but big reason that we don't like to talk about, which is lots of parents (to some extent, understandably) are afraid to send their kids to a school where they would be in the racial minority.

Schools are now as segregated as they were in 1976, which represents a backtracking from the peak in 1988. That represents an erosion of will more than a vastly changed socioeconomic reality.

> there are plenty of places (like my hometown) where parents send their kids further out to ensure that they attend a school that is majority their race rather than the local neighborhood school.

Ah, that is interesting. In my district (and state, AFAIK), school assignment is completely out of the hands of the parents, with some narrow exceptions.

I fully admit to having a narrow view on this, my state is not especially diverse, with more than 75% white and 2% black. So most of our school segregation, if it's fair to call it that, is completely socioeconomic even if the students are largely the same race.

We definitely need more choice in schools. Parents should be able to decide where there children go to school independently of where they live.

What do we do when choice conflicts? Say, if a black family wants to send their kid to local school in a predominately white neighborhood, and there is a limited capacity?

It seems like the solution most institutions land on for this kind of thing is just a first come first serve sign up list. Kids who attended the school the previous year, and kids who have siblings currently attending the school, get first priority for open slots. The rest of the slots are first come first serve. This is how my kid's school, a charter school, works.

Sign-up lists self select for parents who are most motivated to get the best school, which has the risk of maintaining roughly positive correlation with the parent's socioeconomic status.

Lottery

My guess is this approach would also be desegregating.

Glad we agree : )