The document summarizes research on school diversity and integration policies in four cities: Houston, TX; St. Louis, MO; Berkeley, CA; and additional sources. It provides background on the demographics, political leanings, and responses to integration of each city. For Houston, it describes magnet school programs and a lawsuit that changed admissions policies. In St. Louis, it discusses a desegregation program and perspectives on integration. Berkeley is noted as a model of integration using neighborhood-based assignments. Unanswered research questions are also listed.

1. K-12 School Diversity and Integration Cross-
Comparison Research
Presented by Dhruv Relwani, Ashley Gu, and Melanie Olson

2. Houston, Texas
City Size, Demographics & Political Leanings
- Houston has roughly 2.2 million residents
- Total population of Texas is 26.3 million residents
Political
Leanings (%)
Texas Houston
Democrat 41 50
Republican 47 49
Independent 12 1
Race &
Ethnicity (%)
Texas Houston
White 73 43
Black or African
American
12 25
Asian 2.7 5
Hispanic or
Latino
32 38

3. Houston, Texas
Response to Integration
Districtwide Vanguard Magnet Programs are designed to meet the needs of G/T students in grades K-12 by providing a
learning continuum that is differentiated in depth, complexity, and pacing.
There are 10 Vanguard Magnet Elementary Schools, 6 Vanguard Magnet Middle Schools, and 1 Vanguard Magnet High
School. The Vanguard Magnet Program is designed for G/T students who excel in general intellectual ability in combination
with creative/productive thinking and/or leadership ability.
The Advanced Academics Department central administration office develops the criteria for admission, which is based on
the Texas State Plan for the Education of Gifted/Talented Students. Admission criteria are the same for Vanguard Magnet
programs and Vanguard Neighborhood programs. The Advanced Academics Department conducts the admission
committee meetings for Vanguard Magnet programs.

4. Houston, Texas
Policies & Events
Suit Challenges Quotas
The policy changed after a lawsuit brought by a group of white and Asian-American families after their children were rejected
from Vanguard programs at various schools.
The plaintiffs argued that their children had been passed over in favor of less qualified applicants because of the district's quota
system, which aimed to achieve a ratio in every program of 65 percent blacks and Hispanics to 35 percent students of other
groups.
Just days before the case was slated for trial in federal court last fall, the school board decided to drop the quotas. Policymakers
ultimately decided to continue to give blacks and Hispanics a slight leg up in the Vanguard process--but only if they come from
poor families. Under the new system, such children get three extra points out of a possible 108 in a rating system that considers
grades, test scores, interviews, and parent and student questionnaires, as well as such obstacles to success as poverty, lack of
fluency in English, and disabilities.

5. Houston, Texas
Policies & Events
Admissions Patterns Shift
Admission to other magnet programs is now done through lotteries that don't take race into account. Before the lawsuit, those
programs, too, had been subject to the 65-35 targets.
As a result of the revised policy, admissions patterns appear to be shifting.

6. St. Louis, Missouri
City Size, Demographics & Political Leanings
- Total Population of St. Louis: 318,416 residents
- Total Population of Missouri: 6.083 Million residents
Political
Leanings (%)
Missouri St. Louis
Democrat 34 42
Republican 58 57
Independent 8 1
Race &
Ethnicity (%)
Missouri St. Louis
White 84 47.1
Black or African
American
11.7 46.9
Asian 1.7 3.3
Hispanic or
Latino
3 3.9

7. St. Louis, Missouri
Policies & Events
- In the early 1980s, thousands of black children from St. Louis began attending
predominantly white schools in St. Louis County as the result of a federal
school desegregation lawsuit.
- In 1998 Attorney General Nixon went to court trying to end the program, but
U.S. District Judge George Gunn Jr. wouldn’t go along. Instead, he appointed
William Danforth, former chancellor of Washington University, to find a
solution. The result was a settlement, approved by the Missouri Legislature, to
continue the transfer program indefinitely.

8. St. Louis, Missouri
Response to Integration
- “This is not a race issue. This is a commitment to education issue.”
- “So I'm hoping that their discipline records come with them, like their health
records come with them.”
- “If you let those children in, we will leave-- again. And let me assure you. I
personally know a family in the Fox School District that was shopping for
houses in our school district. They were negotiating on a home. And when
this came on the news, they ended negotiations. So... ”

9. St. Louis, Missouri
Results
- The 72.4 Dissimilarity Index for the City of St. Louis (2010 Census) means
that achieving a “fully integrated city” would require 113,784 black city
residents to move out of their neighborhoods and into majority white
neighborhoods.
- The nation’s largest and longest-running school desegregation program that
has allowed more than 60,000 African-American students in St. Louis to
attend suburban schools over several decades likely will be drawing to a
close.

10. Berkeley, California
City Size, Demography, and Political Leaning:
- Total Population of Berkeley: 112,580 residents
- Total Population of California: 38.8 million residents
Political Leanings
(%)
California Berkeley
Democrat 43.9 78.5
Republican 28.9 19.2
Independent 2.6 2.3
Race & Ethnicity
(%)
California Berkeley
White 72.9 59.5
Black or African
American
6.5 10.0
Asian 14.7 8.4
Hispanic or Latino 38.8 10.8

11. Berkeley, California
Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) seen as “Model of Integration” for the
country.
● 1968: First school district in the country to “voluntarily” desegregate.
○ Used race-ethnicity as a means to diversify
● But more recently, neighborhoods in Berkeley are “deeply segregated by race-ethnicity.”
● 2004: BUSD assigns new student assignment plan based on community-wide ethnicity,
economic and family educational backgrounds for successful integration.
○ Uses parental choice, sibling priority and attendance zones for student
placement.
● Parental Choice: BUSD have parents to rank their school choice (1st, 2nd, 3rd choice)

12. Berkeley, California
Results of BUSD attempt of integration plan:
● 2007: American Civil Rights Foundation vs. Berkeley Unified School District
○ BUSD in violation of Proposition 209
● First District Court of Appeals ruled BUSD’s plan not racially discriminatory because
they didn't target “individual's” ethnicity only the ethnicity of the zoned neighborhood
● “National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data reveals that
Berkeley’s segregation rates have remained extremely low since shifting from a race-
based to a geography-based integration plan.”
● Parents agree diversity works based on how well it's going so far by implementing a
“different view of the world… one that is needed in a country as diverse as ours.”

13. Questions resulted from our research:
1. Does the city’s size or resident population have anything to do with how well
it’s able to integrate its public schools?
2. Does political preference have a major role in how well the district will be able
to integrate its schools due to amount of support they gain or lose?
3. How do the different approaches to integration contribute to the community
or country overall?
4. Is instituted integration in public K-12 education the best choice of action for
children?

14. Additional Sources (Not Presented)
1)https://nextstl.com/2013/01/lies-damn-lies-racial-integration-and-
segregation-in-st-louis-and-statistics/
2)https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-
we-all-live-with

15. - Research questions? (Not Presented)
- Background: How it’s beneficial for minorities (socioeconomic upliftment,)? Majority?
- Research Question: What are the policies for integration for city A,B,C and how effective are
they? What are their outcomes? What works and what doesn’t work? How are people
addressing the resegregation of schools? How local resources and people affect integration?
- Analysis by city
- Stats & background
- Questions that we came in with?
- Exploratory analysis
- Some interesting trends that we see among the public schools in the city
- What policies have different cities used?