Harvard Education PR Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: School Desegregation and Resegregation in Charlotte

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow provides a compelling analysis of the forces and choices that have shaped the trend toward the resegregation of public schools. By assembling a wide range of contributors - historians, sociologists, economists, and education scholars - the editors provide a comprehensive view of a community’s experience with desegregation and economic development. Here we see resegregation through the lens of Charlotte, North Carolina, once a national model of successfuldesegregation, and home of the landmark Swann desegregation case, which gave rise to school busing.This book recounts the last forty years of Charlotte’sdesegregation and resegregation, putting education reform in a political and economic context. Within a decade of the Swann case, the district had developed one of the nation’s most successful desegregation plans, measured by racial balance and improved academic outcomes for both black and white students. However, beginning in the 1990s, this plan was gradually dismantled. Today, the level of resegregation in Charlotte has almost returned to what it was prior to 1971. At the core of Charlotte’s story is the relationship between social structure and human agency, with an emphasis on how yesterday’s decisions and actions define today’s choices. From the Back Cover <div><i>Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow </i>provides a compelling analysis of the forces that have shaped the growing resegregation of public schools. Drawing on the experience of Charlotte, North Carolina&#8212;once a national model of school desegregation&#8212;the editors put education reform in political and economic context and show how yesterday&#8217;s decisions define today&#8217;s choices.<br> &#160;<br> &#8220;<i>Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow </i>paints a vivid portrait of the changing realities and daunting challenges facing school districts sixty years after <i>Brown v. Board of Education</i>. This careful analysis of the barriers to opportunity and limits on mobility point toward larger structural forces that must be confronted if we are to fulfill <i>Brown&#8217;s </i>promise of equality.&#8221; &#8212; <b>John A. Powell,</b> director, Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, and The Robert D. Haas Chancellor&#8217;s Chair in Equity and Inclusion, University of California, Berkeley<br> &#160;<br> &#8220;Mickelson, Smith, and Nelson remind us why school desegregation matters for citizens and scholars alike. Their analyses show both the promise and the tragedy of using schools to solve America&#8217;s problems.&#8221; &#8212; <b>Jennifer Hochschild, </b>Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government, and professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University<br> &#160;<br> &#8220;<i>Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow </i>is a model of interdisciplinary policy analysis covering two long policy cycles of desegregation and resegregation. This excellent work poses important questions about the racial future of our metropolitan society.&#8221; &#8212; <b>Gary Orfield, </b>professor of education, law, political science, and urban planning, and codirector, The Civil Rights Project, University of California, Los Angeles<br> &#160;<br> &#8220;This book is a cautionary tale&#8212;far less about a failed experience than about a rejected success&#8212;that deserves serious attention by all who worry about the future of our increasingly diverse democracy.&#8221; &#8212; <b>Jeannie Oakes, </b>Presidential Professor Emerita in Educational Equity, University of California, Los Angeles<br> &#160;<br><b>Roslyn Arlin Mickelson </b>is a professor of sociology, public policy, and women&#8217;s and gender studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. <b>Stephen Samuel Smith </b>is a professor of political science at Winthrop University. <b>Amy Hawn Nelson </b>is the director of research for the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and the director of the Institute for Social Capital, Inc.</div>