On Sept. 12, 1995, four months into my term on the Denver School Board, Judge Richard Matsch ended two decades of court-ordered busing in a decision influenced by a brief filed by Mayor Wellington Webb. Webb claimed that busing had outlived its usefulness, and minorities could now ensure fair treatment for their children, regardless of where they went to school.
The majority of Denver’s white and minority communities agreed, and urged a return to neighborhood schools that would boost white enrollment and allow communities to take an active role in school improvement.
Ironically, the neighborhood school policy that had caused the district to lose in court was now viewed as the solution to improving schools. Aware of neighborhood segregation, the board thought creative policymaking could mitigate its impact in a neighborhood school system.
We adjusted the school resource allocation formula and remodeled schools to ensure equity; provided transportation for children who wanted to continue attending their current, integrated schools; and allowed students to choose any school in the district with capacity (but without transportation).
In another irony, the courts had dismissed a similar open enrollment policy in the 1970s as further evidence of the district’s lack of intent to end discrimination. Nevertheless, we believed these policies, developed with community input, offered the best path forward in the post-court order “new normal.”
Looking back, the policy choices we made in 1995-96 were designed for the district we hoped ours would become, one reflective of the city’s demographics as a whole. Twenty years after busing, enrollment has increased to almost 1969 levels, but the dream of white families returning to a district offering neighborhood schools and choice has not panned out. The 1969 DPS enrollment was 64 percent white. By 1995, whites comprised only 27 percent of students, and enrollment today is 22 percent white and more than 50 percent Latino.
More than 40 percent of schools have a Latino enrollment that exceeds the district average, including dozens in which the Latino population is greater than 90 percent. These schools are also predominantly low-income and many are failing, according to the DPS School Performance Framework. At the same time, there are a number of high-performing neighborhood schools in which the percentage of low-income students is negligible and the majority of students are white.
We seem to have come full circle.
Reducing racial isolation in schools should be as much a priority today as it was in the 1960s. We live in a global society in which racial animus appears to be on the rise. Preparing students for the 21st century should include opportunities to interact with other races and cultures. With busing widely considered to have failed, educators have abandoned the ideals of integration as they intensify efforts to meet the needs of disadvantaged students clustered together in the same schools. Research shows that an impoverished minority student in a school with a high concentration of similar students faces extraordinarily low odds of success. In spite of hard work, good intentions, and more resources than ever targeted to schools in need, DPS has too many such schools — and something needs to change.
Although the district can no longer integrate schools by race, enrollment zones may promote diversity. There are other solutions to consider. Socio-economic integration reduces racial isolation and can be done without forced busing. As the district continues to add schools to its portfolio, it should prohibit the establishment of new schools that enroll significantly more or less than the district average of 70 percent low-income students.
Over time, the supply of more balanced schools would begin to replace those that are highly impacted by race and poverty. In the meantime, if choice continues to be the primary strategy for moving students out of low-performing schools, transportation must be provided to ensure equity. And persistently failing schools should be rapidly converted to charter programs with proven track records to prevent students from languishing in educational environments that are doomed to fail.
Busing is now part of the district’s history, but the goals of equity for all still have not been reached and are more relevant today than ever.
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