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Thursday, June 28, 2007
Race And Schools: A Landmark Decision Or Not?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The nation’s highest court ruled this morning that two public school systems — Seattle and Jefferson County, Ky. — had unlawfully used race to assign students when trying to create more diverse campuses.
In both cases, the justices pointed out, officials had voluntarily created systems to integrate their schools — neither was doing so under a federal court order to desegregate, although the Kentucky district had been under one previously.
It’s still unclear what effect, if any, the decision will have on public schools in Georgia, where 73 of the state’s 181 school systems still operate under federal desegregation orders.
What to do, if anything, about the racial makeup of the country’s public schools has been the subject of fierce debate for decades — long before the famous Brown v. Board of Education case a half-century ago declared that separate schools for black students were not only unconstitutional, but unequal.
Just the other day, we were talking about how much more diverse Georgia’s schools are expected to become in the next decade. So for a moment this morning, I figured this decision and any others on student skin color wouldn’t matter in the future because the country will be so much more multicultural anyway.
Then I realized that regardless of how diverse the United States becomes, the majority of Americans will probably still live in their own, homogeneous enclaves — and most neighborhood schools still will be segregated by race.
UPDATE: Legal experts I spoke to were divided over whether this decision would affect school systems here that still operate under federal court orders to desegregate. A couple said it would not because the Seattle and Jefferson schools had developed their integration plans voluntarily — not under the direction of any court. But one lawyer, who represents dozens of Georgia school systems under those orders, said the decision from the U.S. Supreme Court would trump any lower court ruling. Now that the decision’s out, it’ll be interesting to see the repercussions from what many are calling a historic case.
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Growing Pains At Newest State College
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After boasting that they’d have 3,000 students when they welcome their first freshman class this year, officials at Georgia Gwinnett College are scrambling to fill the slots.
Higher education reporter Andrea Jones reported today that fewer than 450 students have been admitted so far out of just 927 applications.
With less than eight weeks to go before classes start, President Daniel Kaufman seems unfazed by the shortfall. He told Andrea: “This is not Ed’s Barber College. We’re going to grow….”
Of course, the college campus — previously home to several satellite programs for well-established colleges and universities — will eventually fill out. The question is, how long will it take?
As Andrea points out in her story, GGC won’t be fully accredited for at least two years, and, right now, there’s only four majors to choose from — both factors likely limiting student interest.
So, until the campus really takes off, Georgia Gwinnett students may get some extra-special attention from professors. If the numbers don’t change before the fall semester, there will be roughly one faculty member for every five students.
