By Smita Ghosh

Roanoke, VA, ends 1971 busing program… Madison County, MS, phases out minority transfer program… Little Rock, AR is released from federal desegregation order… Houston, TX responds to lawsuit by ending opportunity programs for women-owned businesses… John McWhorter, Julian Bond and others discuss class- and race- based affirmative action programs… Arne Duncan and Walter Issacson encourage federal accountability initiatives… Sacramento area schools segregate assemblies… Colin Powell’s organization publishes report on urban-suburban graduation gap.

Roanoke Ends Cross-town Busing for Desegregation
WJZTV/Associated Press, April 10, 2009
On April 10, members of the Roanoke, VA school board adopted a new school attendance zone map for the district’s elementary schools. The new plan replaces a 1971 cross-town busing venture with a neighborhood schools model.

More:
Students to Stay Near Home in Approved Roanoke Attendance Zones
Roanoke Times – April 11, 2009

School District Phasing Out Minority Student Transfer
Madison County Journal – April 9, 2009
The Madison County School district has announced plans to phase out its Majority-to-Minority transfer program, which allowed students to transfer to schools outside their attendance zones if the students would make the receiving school more racially diverse. The program is being phased out now that the district has been released from a federal desegregation order. The district’s release was affirmed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2008.

Court Upholds Little Rock Desegregation Order
Associated Press – April 2, 2009
On April 2, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis upheld a 2007 lower court ruling declaring unitary the Little Rock, AR school district. The Circuit Court found that the lawyer representing a group of black students did not present evidence to support challenges to how the district’s desegregation was evaluated.

Houston Women Business Owners Lose Preferential Treatment in City Contracts
Channel 11 News – April 1, 2009
On April 1, the Houston City Council approved a court settlement that would remove the portion of the city’s affirmative action contracting plan that requires 3 percent of contracts to be awarded to women-owned businesses. The change results from the settlement of a 1996 lawsuit in which a local construction company, Kossman Contracting, challenged the city’s affirmative action plan. As a result of the challenge, the City of Houston agreed to conduct a “disparity study,” to determine whether women or minority-owned businesses were being discriminated against in city subcontracts. The study found that while black and Hispanic-owned businesses did have trouble competing on a level-playing field, companies owned by women did not. The approved change to the plan now awaits approval from Federal Court.

Scholars Debate Race Versus Class-based Affirmative Action in College Admissions
Diverse Issues in Higher Education – April 17, 2009
Review of debate between John McWhorter, Julian Bond, Lee Bollinger and Dalton Conley.

More on the debate (from columnist Clarence Page): Race Goals Easier, Not Better
Chicago Tribune – April 19, 2009

School Reform Means Doing What’s Best for Kids
The Wall Street Journal – April 22, 2009
In an Opinion article, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan describes his intention to use the Recovery Act’s State Fiscal Stabilization Fund will to “hold states and districts accountable for meeting the reform requirements of the law” and to promote a culture of accountability.

Education Standards Likely to See Toughening
The New York Times – April 14, 2009
With his education team, President Obama seems to be using the federal stimulus plan to increase the role of the Federal government in state education systems and strengthen the central tenets of the No Child Left Behind Law. The Education Department has created several “assurances” that State Governments must make upon receiving federal aid, including pledges to develop sophisticated data systems that track teacher progress, to “improve the quality of standardized tests” and to more equitably distribute teachers among high- and low- performing schools.

How to Raise the Standard in America’s Schools
Time magazine – April 15, 2009
Walter Isaacson, former managing editor of TIME, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute and author of Einstein: His Life and Universe, writes about the importance of national standards and Obama’s work towards the same.

College Board Wants More Help for Illegal Immigrants
USA Today – April 21, 2009
On April 21, the College Board, an organization made of 5,000 higher education institutions and best known for producing the SAT tests, released a report urging federal legislation to open up in-state college tuition, financial aid and legal status to many illegal immigrants in the United States. The report, which is the College Board’s first statement on the issue of education provision for illegal immigrants, comes as several states, including Missouri and Virginia, are considering joining South Carolina in banning illegal immigrants from enrolling in public colleges. At least four states-Georgia, Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona-prohibit illegal immigrants from receiving in-state tuition rates.

Sacramento-area Schools Use Race-based Assemblies to Push Standardized Tests
The Sacramento Bee – April 22, 2009
Several schools in the Sacramento, CA school district, including Laguna Creek High School, Florin High School and James Rutter Middle School, are offering segregated assemblies on “Standardized Testing and Reporting,” or STAR, a battery of tests that California students will take this year. At Laguna Creek, administrators said that students could attend any of the offered assemblies, but specifically designated one assembly for Black students, one for Latinos and one for Asians.

Large Urban-Suburban Gap Seen in Graduation Rates
The New York Times – April 22, 2009
A nationwide study from an advocacy group documents the disparities between high school graduation rates in American cities and suburban areas. America’s Promise Alliance, the organization that sponsored the study, is a nonprofit group that works to reduce the nation’s dropout rate that is headed by Colin Powell and his wife, Alma. The Alliance found that the average high school graduation rate in the nation’s 50 largest cities was 53 percent, compared with 71 percent in the suburbs. In the New York region, 54 percent of freshmen graduate within four years from schools in the city, compared with 83 percent from suburban high schools.

Read the PDF report, Cities in Crisis 2009: Closing the Graduation Gap, Educational and Economic Conditions in America’s Largest Cities

Smith Ghosh is a Paralegal in the Education Department of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.