Court-Ordered School Desegregation Begins in Chicago

Minority Students Transfer To 34 City Schools

Chicago minority students began transferring into 34 of the city's substantially white public schools this week in response to a federal judge's court order. U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras ruled in December that the Chicago Board of Education had to find seats in substantially white schools for black and Latino students. His order was in response to U.S. Justice Department claims that the school district violated the latest version of its desegregation agreement by not offering any racial transfers this year to improve integration. Although Chicago Public Schools administrators had said the schools were overcrowded, they found 308 open slots after the court order. More than 280 minority students accepted the open spots at the substantially white schools. That number decreased to about 190 as some parents determined travel arrangements were too difficult for their children. The school district has given parents until the Friday deadline to transfer their children to new schools, said Sherri Thornton, Chicago Public Schools' associate general counsel. Chicago is the nation's third-largest school district with 431,000 students. For the past 24 years, the public school system has had a voluntary agreement with the federal government to integrate its schools. Kocoras in 2003 called the 1980 agreement "outdated." When the original agreement was struck, the district was 19 percent white, but that number has since dwindled to 9.2 percent. The district has never admitted it segregated its students but agreed to let the Justice Department monitor its schools. [more]