Harvard Education Press

From the Courtroom to the Classroom
The Shifting Landscape of School Desegregation

Edited by Claire E. Smrekar and Ellen B. Goldring

From the Courtroom to the Classroom examines recent developments pertaining to school desegregation
in the United States. As the editors note, it comes at a time marked by a “general downplaying of race and ethnicity as criteria for the allocation of public resources, as well as a weakening of the political forces that support busing to achieve racial integration.” The book fills a growing need for a full-scale assessment of this recent history and its effect on schools, children, and communities.

From the Foreword:

"From the Courtroom to the Classroom deepens our insights about the causes of racial isolation and the associated difficulty of achieving excellence in schools across society. It reviews and illuminates options for public policy and private behavior but offers no easy answers. It helps us respect the past, understand the present, and imagine possible futures. It presses us to clarify and fulfill our generation’s responsibility for this part of the journey away from racial isolation and toward racial justice, social equality, and academic excellence."
—Ronald F. Ferguson, faculty cochair and director of the Achievement Gap Initiative, Harvard University

Advance Praise:

“This book offers important assessments of recent school desegregation strategies and asks whether they have fulfilled the constitutional requirement to ‘establish justice’ and ‘promote the general welfare.’ It is an important contribution to our assessment of the ongoing legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, which many scholars feel was the most significant U.S. Supreme Court case of the twentieth century.”
—Charles V. Willie, Charles W. Eliot Professor of Education, Emeritus, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University

“In an era of unitary status, ‘color-blind’ school-choice policy, and a Supreme Court with four justices who argue that the creation of racially diverse schools is not a compelling state interest, we need more than ever the insights into separate and unequal schools found in From the Courtroom to the Classroom.”
—Amy Stuart Wells, professor, Department of Sociology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

About the Authors:

Claire E. Smrekar is an associate professor of public policy and education at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University and an investigator with the National Center on School Choice. Her work involves qualitative research studies related to the social context of education and public policy, with specific reference to the impact of desegregation plans and choice policy on families, schools, and neighborhoods. Ellen B. Goldring is professor of education policy and leadership at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, and is an investigator with the National Center on School Choice and The Learning Sciences Institute. Goldring’s research focuses on improving schools, with particular attention to educational leadership, and access and equity in schools of choice.