About Congress and how things need to be changed.

Congressional power: Congress and social change

Politics & Social Sciences

Orfield, Gary

Politics & Government

Harcourt, Brace. Jovanovich

The Closing Door is the first major critique of the effect of conservative policies on urban race and poverty in the 1980s. Atlanta, with its booming economy, strong elected black leadership, and many highly educated blacks, seemed to be the perfect site for those policies and market solutions to prove themselves. Unfortunately, not only did expected economic opportunity fail to materialize but many of the hard-won gains of the civil rights movement were lost. Orfield and Ashkinaze painstakingly analyze the evidence from Atlanta to show why black opportunity deteriorated over the 1980s and outline possible remedies for the damage inflicted by the Reagan and Bush administrations. "The Closing Door is a crucial breath of fresh air . . . an important and timely text which will help to alter the 'underclass' debate in favor of reconsidering race-specific policies. Orfield and Ashkinaze construct a convincing argument with which those who favor 'race-neutrality' will have to contend. In readable prose they make a compelling case that economic growth is not enough."—Preston H. Smith II, Transition

The Closing Door: Conservative Policy and Black Opportunity

Business & Money

Ashkinaze, Carole

Economics

University of Chicago Press

The Closing Door is the first major critique of the effect of conservative policies on urban race and poverty in the 1980s. Atlanta, with its booming economy, strong elected black leadership, and many highly educated blacks, seemed to be the perfect site for those policies and market solutions to prove themselves. Unfortunately, not only did expected economic opportunity fail to materialize but many of the hard-won gains of the civil rights movement were lost. Orfield and Ashkinaze painstakingly analyze the evidence from Atlanta to show why black opportunity deteriorated over the 1980s and outline possible remedies for the damage inflicted by the Reagan and Bush administrations. "The Closing Door is a crucial breath of fresh air . . . an important and timely text which will help to alter the 'underclass' debate in favor of reconsidering race-specific policies. Orfield and Ashkinaze construct a convincing argument with which those who favor 'race-neutrality' will have to contend. In readable prose they make a compelling case that economic growth is not enough."—Preston H. Smith II, Transition

The Reconstruction of Southern Education: The Schools and the 1964 Civil Rights Act

Education & Teaching

Schools & Teaching

Wiley-Interscience

Educational Delusions?: Why Choice Can Deepen Inequality and How to Make Schools Fair

The first major battle over school choice came out of struggles over equalizing and integrating schools in the civil rights era, when it became apparent that choice could be either a serious barrier or a significant tool for reaching these goals. The second large and continuing movement for choice was part of the very different anti-government, individualistic, market-based movement of a more conservative period in which many of the lessons of that earlier period were forgotten, though choice was once again presented as the answer to racial inequality. This book brings civil rights back into the center of the debate and tries to move from doctrine to empirical research in exploring the many forms of choice and their very different consequences for equity in U.S. schools. Leading researchers conclude that although helping minority children remains a central justification for choice proponents, ignoring the essential civil rights dimensions of choice plans risks compounding rather than remedying racial inequality.

Frankenberg, Erica

University of California Press

The Walls around Opportunity: The Failure of Colorblind Policy for Higher Education (Our Compelling Interests)

Review\n"A thorough, unflinching look at what it would take to eradicate racial barriers in American higher education .... [the book] finds clear directions within a complex issue and makes a robust case for centering race in higher education policy." ― Library Journal\n"Anyone who seeks to understand policies and structures that have generated and continue to reinforce racial stratification in the US, and who believes that the past can inform the present and guide the future, will find the book to be a worthy read."---Pamela R. Bennett, Ethnic and Race Studies\nThe case for race-conscious education policy\nIn our unequal society, families of color fully share the dream of college but their children often attend schools that do not prepare them, and the higher education system gives the best opportunities to the most privileged. Students of color hope for college but often face a dead end. 
For many young people, racial inequality puts them at a disadvantage from early childhood. The Walls around Opportunity argues that colorblind policies have made college inaccessible to a large share of students of color, and reveals how policies that acknowledge racial inequalities and set racial equality goals can succeed where colorblindness has failed.\nGary Orfield paints a troubling portrait of American higher education, explaining how profound racial gaps imbedded in virtually every stage of our children’s lives pose a major threat to communities of color and the nation. He describes how the 1960s and early 1970s was the only period in history to witness sustained efforts at racial equity in higher education, and how the Reagan era ushered in today’s colorblind policies, which ignore the realities of color inequality. Orfield shows how this misguided policy has resegregated public schools, exacerbated inequalities in college preparation, denied needed financial aid to families, and led to huge price increases over decades that have seen little real gain in income for most Americans.\nDrawing on a wealth of new data and featuring commentaries by Stella Flores and James Anderson, this timely and urgent book shows how colorblind policies serve only to raise the walls of segregation higher, and proposes real solutions that can make higher education available to all.

Sociology

Princeton University Press

Controversial claims are being debated about school choice and the application of market dynamics to education. But the polemics have far out-paced hard evidence regarding who participates in school choice experiments and what effects are felt by parents, children and schools. This work reports the latest empirical results on choice programs nationwide. Who benefits and who loses under these programs? Do innovative forms of schooling flourish? Does student achievement improve? These are the questions addressed by contributors to this book.

Who Chooses? Who Loses?: Culture, Institutions, and the Unequal Effects of School Choice (Sociology of Education Series)

Fuller, Bruce

Elmore, Richard F.

Teachers' College Press

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Books by Orfield, Gary