Caldas and Bankston provide a critical, dispassionate analysis of why desegregation in the United States has failed to achieve the goal of providing equal educational opportunities for all students. They offer case histories through dozens of examples of failed desegregation plans from all over the country. The book takes a very broad perspective on race and education, situated in the larger context of the development of individual rights in Western civiliztion. The book traces the long legal history of first racial segregation, and then racial desegregation in America. The authors explain how rapidly changing demographics and family structure in the United States have greatly complicated the project of top-down government efforts to achieve an ideal racial balance in schools. It describes how social capital—a positive outcome of social interaction between and among parents, children, and teachers—creates strong bonds that lead to high academic achievement. The authors show how coercive desegregation weakens bonds and hurts not only students and schools, but also entire communities. Examples from all parts of the United States show how parents undermined desegregation plans by seeking better educational alternatives for their children rather than supporting the public schools to which their children were assigned. Most important, this book offers an alternative, more realistic viewpoint on class, race, and education in America.

Still Failing: The Continuing Paradox of School Desegregation is a significantly updated and revised version of Caldas and Bankston's previous book Forced to Fail: The Paradox of School Desegregation. The book includes an analysis of the most significant Supreme Court cases that have been decided in the ten years since the first edition of the book appeared. The authors consider the important implications of these recent rulings for the future of school desegregation in America's schools. Social capital theory is used to explain why schools and communities continue to be segregated along racial and ethnic lines. Still Failing also provides the most recent U.S. census and Department of Education statistics documenting the continuing segregation of American schools and districts. The book also continues to track the persistent racial achievement gap, using the newest ACT, SAT, and NAEP testing figures. Finally, the book considers what present segregation trends portend for future efforts to racially and ethnically integrate schools, and close achievement gaps. Additional key features of this book include: *Historical antecedents showing how and why American schooling became racially segregated *Social capital theory to explain school and community segregation *The legal history of all important supreme court cases, congressional laws and presidential executive orders related to school segregation and desegregation *Easy-to-read and interpret graphs and figures *The most up-to-date school population and census information

Many activists and writers have ascribed continuing racial segregation in American schools to a failure of will. In this view, forced transfers of students and other aggressive judicially mandated policies would lead to greater equality in education if only legislators and judges had the will to continue trying to make school districts conform to plans for redesigning schools and even American society. Controls and Choices: The Educational Marketplace and the Failure of School Desegregation provides a detailed examination of the nature of the educational marketplace, supported by historical evidence, to argue that school desegregation failed because it involved monopolistic efforts at redistributing opportunities. These efforts were fundamentally at odds with the self-interest of the families who had the greatest ability to make choices in the educational marketplace. The authors use the concept of the educational marketplace to explain how market-based attempts at school reform, notably vouchers and charter schools, have grown out of the failure of desegregation and remain hampered by lack of recognition of how the schools really function as markets. Some additional key features of this book include: *Gives a clear understanding of how schools function as markets *Illustrates the argument with histories of specific school districts *Links the history of school desegregation to school vouchers and charter schools *Includes easy to read and interpret graphs and figures *Includes most up-to-date school population and census information

This book is a case study carefully detailing the French/English bilingual and biliterate development of three children in one family beginning with their births and ending in late adolescence. The author and researcher is the children's French/English bilingual American father, who was aided by his bilingual French Canadian wife (also the children's mother). We reared our three children in two different cultures- essentially monolingual English-speaking Louisiana, and totally monolingual French-speaking Quebec. The family spent academic years in Louisiana, and the summer months in Quebec. Our strategy was to speak only French to our son and our identical twin daughters. We artificially orchestrated and manipulated both the strategies, and to the extent possible, even the children's environments to ensure the success of our project. Additionally, I carefully documented our progress using a variety of research tools, including audio and videotape recordings, teacher and child surveys, interviews with teachers, fieldnotes, psychological and diagnostic testing, and standardized assessment instruments.

Many activists and writers have ascribed continuing racial segregation in American schools to a failure of will. In this view, forced transfers of students and other aggressive judicially mandated policies would lead to greater equality in education if only legislators and judges had the will to continue trying to make school districts conform to plans for redesigning schools and even American society. Controls and Choices: The Educational Marketplace and the Failure of School Desegregation provides a detailed examination of the nature of the educational marketplace, supported by historical evidence, to argue that school desegregation failed because it involved monopolistic efforts at redistributing opportunities. These efforts were fundamentally at odds with the self-interest of the families who had the greatest ability to make choices in the educational marketplace. The authors use the concept of the educational marketplace to explain how market-based attempts at school reform, notably vouchers and charter schools, have grown out of the failure of desegregation and remain hampered by lack of recognition of how the schools really function as markets. Some additional key features of this book include: *Gives a clear understanding of how schools function as markets *Illustrates the argument with histories of specific school districts *Links the history of school desegregation to school vouchers and charter schools *Includes easy to read and interpret graphs and figures *Includes most up-to-date school population and census information

Still Failing: The Continuing Paradox of School Desegregation is a significantly updated and revised version of Caldas and Bankston's previous book Forced to Fail: The Paradox of School Desegregation. The book includes an analysis of the most significant Supreme Court cases that have been decided in the ten years since the first edition of the book appeared. The authors consider the important implications of these recent rulings for the future of school desegregation in America's schools. Social capital theory is used to explain why schools and communities continue to be segregated along racial and ethnic lines. Still Failing also provides the most recent U.S. census and Department of Education statistics documenting the continuing segregation of American schools and districts. The book also continues to track the persistent racial achievement gap, using the newest ACT, SAT, and NAEP testing figures. Finally, the book considers what present segregation trends portend for future efforts to racially and ethnically integrate schools, and close achievement gaps. Additional key features of this book include: *Historical antecedents showing how and why American schooling became racially segregated *Social capital theory to explain school and community segregation *The legal history of all important supreme court cases, congressional laws and presidential executive orders related to school segregation and desegregation *Easy-to-read and interpret graphs and figures *The most up-to-date school population and census information

Forced to Fail traces the long legal history of first racial segregation, and then racial desegregation in America. The authors explain how rapidly changing demographics and family structure in the United States have greatly complicated the project of top-down government efforts to achieve an "ideal" racial balance in schools. It describes how social capital-a positive outcome of social interaction between and among parents, children, and teachers-creates strong bonds that lead to high academic achievement. The authors show how coercive desegregation weakens bonds and hurts not only students and schools, but also entire communities. Examples from all parts of the United States show how parents undermined desegregation plans by seeking better educational alternatives for their children rather than supporting the public schools to which their children were assigned. Most important, this book offers an alternative, more realistic viewpoint on class, race, and education in America.

After over half a century of court-directed efforts to redress the historical educational chasm between blacks and whites in the United States, both the past achievements and the future direction of school desegregation are uncertain. Too often, the early gains made in racially desegregating America's schools seem to have been halted, and in many cases reversed. Urban school decay is once again on the rise, with predictable consequences. For the very poorest minority students, who have limited educational options apart from dangerous, deteriorating neighbourhood schools, drop-out rates are high, standardised test scores are abysmally low, and violence is an everyday fact of life. The gulf between the unskilled, marginalised students being warehoused in these predominantly poor, minority schools on the one hand, and the increasingly high tech society they cannot compete in on the other, is growing. This ground-breaking book presents the viewpoints and research of some of the most prominent scholars in the field of school desegregation. It covers virtually the entire spectrum of thinking and scholarship on school desegregation and its promise, success, necessity, pitfalls and failures.