Effective educational strategies for desegregated schools

Abstract

Students in a desegregated school system usually manifest the full range of learning capabilities. Thus, effective educational strategies for students in desegregated schools would be a combination of strategies most effective for children who are handicapped, have limited or no English-speaking ability, require compensatory education, are academically gifted, or who have no special needs. In other words, strategies that work for different types of children generally work for them whether a school is desegregated or not. In some ways, desegregation renders effective education more difficult. At the same time, desegregation can create opportunities to enhance the education youngsters receive because it can create possibilities for and sometimes force changes in curricula, classroom structures, instructional practices, and behavior of teachers and administrators (Hawley, forthcoming). Moreover, racially integrated schools have one certain advantage over racially isolated schools: they offer opportunities to learn from and about persons of at least one other race. In most cases, students in desegregated schools also will experience more interaction with persons of different social backgrounds than will students in segregated school systems. Desegregation's overall effects on students show that it generally (a) improves the educational achievement of minorities and does not, at least, reduce the achievement of whites (Crain & Mahard, 1981) and (b) usually results in improved race relations where schools make appropriate efforts to achieve this result (Schofield, 1981; McConahay, 1981). This paper, however, points to educational strategies to enhance the probabilities of maximizing potential benefits of desegregation and minimizing potential costs. It is not a full prescription for effective My intent suggests some steps important to do in desegregated schools in addition to the things that should be done to otherwise provide children with a People will differ, of course, on their definition of quality education. In this paper, or effectiveness is defined in terms of (a) academic achievement in mathematics and language arts, and (b) tolerance and understanding of persons of different races and social backgrounds. Conclusions reported here are based on findings of a recent study which I directed involving extensive reviews of the written research and commentary on the effects of desegregation (Hawley, Crain, Rossell, Fernandez, Schofield, Smylie, Tompkins, Trent, & Zlotnik, 1981) surveys of educators (Trent, 1981), and interviews with 135 local and national desegregation experts (Trent, 1981). This paper draws directly