Stepping over the Color Line: African-American Students in White Suburban Schools

This important book takes the discussion of racial inequality in America beyond simplistic arguments of white racism and black victimization to a more complex conversation about the separate but unequal situation in many schools today. Amy Stuart Wells and Robert Crain investigate the St. Louis, Missouri, school desegregation plan, a unique agreement that since 1983 has given black inner-city students the right to choose to attend predominantly white suburban schools. After five years of research and hundreds of interviews with policymakers, administrators, teachers, students, and parents, Wells and Crain conclude that when school desegregation is examined from these many perspectives, more strengths than weaknesses emerge. They call for a reexamination of now-popular school choice policies across the country so that these policies may help to bring about more racial and social-class integration. Stepping over the Color Line intertwines data on student achievement and racial isolation with stories of the people who participated in the St. Louis program. The authors set these individuals within a broad historical and social context and demonstrate how important linkages between the past and present help explain why efforts to overcome racial inequality―in St. Louis and in the larger society―are so difficult. "The authors do a superb job of explaining how this innovative program came about, placing it in a broad context that takes it beyond its immediate and local implications. The book is at times heartbreaking and at times uplifting."―Richard Zweigenhaft, co-author of Blacks in the White Establishment? A Study of Race and Class in America

Politics & Social Sciences

Wells, Amy Stuart

Crain, Robert L.

Social Sciences

Yale University Press

This is the untold story of a generation that experienced one of the most extraordinary chapters in our nation's history—school desegregation. Many have attempted to define desegregation, which peaked in the late 1970s, as either a success or a failure; surprisingly few have examined the experiences of the students who lived though it. Featuring the voices of blacks, whites, and Latinos who graduated in 1980 from racially diverse schools, Both Sides Now offers a powerful firsthand account of how desegregation affected students—during high school and later in life. Their stories, set in a rich social and historical context, underscore the manifold benefits of school desegregation while providing an essential perspective on the current backlash against it.

Both Sides Now: The Story of School Desegregation’s Graduates

Sociology

University of California Press

This is the untold story of a generation that experienced one of the most extraordinary chapters in our nation's history―school desegregation. Many have attempted to define desegregation, which peaked in the late 1970s, as either a success or a failure; surprisingly few have examined the experiences of the students who lived though it. Featuring the voices of blacks, whites, and Latinos who graduated in 1980 from racially diverse schools, Both Sides Now offers a powerful firsthand account of how desegregation affected students―during high school and later in life. Their stories, set in a rich social and historical context, underscore the manifold benefits of school desegregation while providing an essential perspective on the current backlash against it.

Explores the philosophical principles, compromises, and current debate surrounding educational goals, parents' rights, and school choice

Time to Choose: America at the Crossroads of School Choice Policy (New Frontiers of Education)

Education & Teaching

Schools & Teaching

Hill & Wang Pub

The Choice on School Choice: California Confronts Its Educational Future

U C L A, Graduate School of Education & Infor

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Books by Wells, Amy Stuart