Chicago Desegregation is mission improbable

 A 1980 federal desegregation case may result in more than 300 minority students in Chicago attending schools with the whitest enrollments next semester, but it's too late for integration in the nation's third-largest public school district. It's a matter of demographics. Around 91 percent of the 431,000 students enrolled in the city's public schools are non-white. The opportunity to achieve racial balance system-wide evaporated over the last generation as white families moved to the suburbs throughout the 1960s, '70s and '80s -- but a 24-year-old desegregation battle is still being waged in the courts. Two weeks ago U.S. District Judge Charles P. Kocoras gave Chicago's public schools 10 days to find seats for African-American and Hispanic children in substantially white public schools. The judge said administrators failed to offer any racial transfers to integrate schools last fall. "It's hard to believe there are no open seats," said Kocoras after CPS said it had done everything within its power to promote integration.  [more]

• Separate But Better? A Philadelphia-area school district is considering opening an African-centered charter school to boost the low test scores of its Black students and offer an alternative to the European-based curricula taught in public schools. [more]
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