Dexter_Milliken_v_Bradley

Education 1ac

Contention One is Education

America’s public school system is increasingly segregated by class – this destroys educational quality – Unfortunately, effective remedies are all unconstitutional Adams, J.D., 2007 [Chris, "Comment: IS ECONOMIC INTEGRATION THE FOURTH WAVE IN SCHOOL FINANCE LITIGATION?,' 56 Emory L.J. 1613]

Imagine you are a low-income parent of a child attending Urban Elementary. Ninety percent of your child's classmates also come from low-income families. Compared with students at Suburban Elementary a few miles away, your child is significantly more likely to have an unqualified teacher and to be unable to read proficiently by third grade. n2 While students at Suburban discuss college, the majority of your child's highly influential peers will not graduate from high school. But you have heard of school districts that function differently. Based on research indicating that low-income students perform significantly better when surrounded by middle-class peers, some districts have begun integrating schools by income level. Believing your child has the right to an adequate education, you wish to register her at Suburban Elementary, where you believe middle-class peers would improve her achievement. However, state officials inform you that students may only attend schools in the district in which they live. Introduction The above hypothetical describes a common challenge faced by students and parents at predominantly low-income urban public schools. School funding notwithstanding, economic isolation is a major obstacle to student achievement. n3 At the same time, a handful of socioeconomic integration efforts around the nation confirm what social science has long suggested: Low-income students perform better at majority middle-class schools. This raises the question: is there a way for students living in urban areas to receive an education in a more economically integrated setting? [*1614] Forty-nine state constitutions n4 contain an education article that guarantees children some substantive level of education. n5 While the actual level varies, in "adequacy" cases, courts have held that this affirmative right requires that a state provide funding adequate for students to receive this education. n6 However, given the challenges presented by concentrated poverty, funding alone may not create this opportunity.

Segregation of people living in poverty is the single greatest factor for the erosion of the US education system – consensus of studies prove that concentrated poverty devastates academic performance Ciolfi, J.D. UVA Law School, June 2003 [Angela, "NOTE: SHUFFLING THE DECK: REDISTRICTING TO PROMOTE A QUALITY EDUCATION IN VIRGINIA," 89 Va. L. Rev. 773]

All of these failing urban divisions have one other significant characteristic in common: concentrations of poor students and racial minorities. I have used Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program eligibility as a proxy for low socioeconomic status because other studies have found it a good indicator of poverty among students. n58 Not surprisingly, Virginia's demographics mirror national trends in that poor students are concentrated in city schools. n59 In 1999-2000, every one of the urban divisions mentioned above had a higher percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches than the statewide average of 31.9%. n60 In contrast, every suburban division (with the exception of Arlington County) had a lower percentage of eligible students than the statewide average. n61 Even more relevant, all but one of the urban divisions had higher percentages of free or reduced-price eligible students than their surrounding suburban divisions. n62 The sole exception, Arlington, a densely populated suburb of Washington, D.C., is arguably as urban [*784] as its neighbor, Alexandria. n63 At 67.78% and 17.17% respectively, Richmond and Chesterfield County account for the largest urban/suburban disparity. n64 These locales represent a significant fifty-point differential. The smallest differential, found between Charlottesville and Albemarle County, still constitutes an enormous gap of 27.46 percentage points. n65 These demographics reveal distinct concentrations of poverty in Virginia's urban schools. Socioeconomic segregation is not the only predicament plaguing Virginia's urban schools. De facto racial segregation is still alive and well in many areas. African-Americans are over-represented in cities as compared to whites; conversely, they are under-represented in suburban divisions. n66 In the City of Richmond school division, for example, 91% of students are African-American, while only 7% are white. Next door, in Chesterfield County, the school population is only 22% African-American and 73% white. Petersburg is 97% African-American, while its neighboring locality, Colonial Heights, is only 7% African-American. n67 Whatever implications racial segregation may have for socialization and academics, its impact on education is undeniable when combined with socioeconomic segregation. Just as suburban divisions outperform urban ones, large divisions fare much better than do small, mostly rural divisions. In 2000, there were nine divisions with memberships of more than 30,000 students. n69 Of the 642 schools in this subset, 373, or 58% of [*785] them, were rated as Fully Accredited. n70 There were thirty-three divisions that served fewer than 2000 pupils. Of these 105 schools, only thirty-five, or 33% of them, received full accreditation. n71 This survey does not take into account factors unique to rural school divisions and their effects on education. The objective is to make the simple point that, for whatever reason, small divisions are disadvantaged. A student who attends school in a small division is much less likely to attend a Fully Accredited school than one who attends school in a large division. Anecdotal evidence confirms what the numbers indicate. What educators think about the SOL tests depends on where they teach or administrate. In Chesterfield County, the superintendent's glass is more than half-full: ""The challenge for us is always going to be ensuring that every kid who makes an effort realizes that meeting these high standards is not only possible, it's probable. We're not willing to be comfortable with just where we are.'" n72 Just south of Chesterfield in the City of Petersburg, however, officials are not so content with their results: ""Not having any provisionally accredited schools this year doesn't please us at all. We have a lot of work to do, and our principals are working aggressively to reach the benchmarks ... . We've got to roll up our sleeves.'" n73 In sum, the statewide SOL passage rates are misleading. Nearly 40% of Virginia schools are located in suburban areas. n74 If it is true that suburban schools perform consistently better than do city schools, n75 it follows that because of their numbers, the suburban schools are pulling up the state average and obscuring the distressing problems with Virginia's city schools. The combination of poor academic performance and high poverty throughout school divisions in Virginia's urban centers comports [*786] with trends in urban areas across the country. Urban schools differ from suburban schools in terms of racial composition, student poverty, student performance, and dropout rates. n76 Urban schools serve predominantly racial minorities, while suburban schools cater to white students. n77 Yet studies have shown that the proper framework for analysis is not race but socioeconomic class. The most profound effects on student performance come from concentrations of poverty. n78 Unfortunately, urban centers are characterized by high poverty rates, n79 and the number of poor people in cities has been growing. n80 By the 1990-91 school year, more than one-half of the students in the nation's largest urban districts were eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. n81 There is a dramatic correlation between urban schools and low student performance. n82 More than one-half of urban students score below a level of basic proficiency on national tests that evaluate subject areas such as reading, math, and science. n83 In contrast, two-thirds of students in non-urban schools meet these minimum standards. n84 There is also a dramatic correlation between concentrations of poverty found in urban schools and student performance. This correlation focuses on not just the poverty level of individual students, but on the overall poverty level of the schools themselves, which are often located in urban centers. A 1997 congressional study found that "the poverty level of the school (over and above the economic status of an individual student) is negatively related to standardized achievement scores." n85 Students who live in poor neighborhoods and attend poor, usually urban schools are thus [*787] doubly disadvantaged. Disparities between urban and suburban divisions are not the exception, but the norm. n86 Fortunately, it is not necessary that educational opportunity be a luxury available only to those who live in privileged school divisions.

Scenario One: Hegemony

US leadership will ride out the current economic crisis – HOWEVER, repairing the education system is key to make make US economic power sustainable Isaacson, Aspen Institute CEO and President, 4/27/2009 [Walter, ‘How to Raise The Standard In America's Schools,’ TIME, pg. Proquest]

The U.S. will, believe it or not, eventually get out of the current financial crisis. Then it will face an even bigger challenge: creating a real economy that will be as internationally competitive in the 21st century as it was in the 20th century. All of the recent bank bailouts and mortgage plans will, even if they succeed, build an economic foundation of bricks without straw--ready to crumble--if we don't create a productive economy again. That means creating a workforce that is educated well enough to produce more value per capita than other countries. This will be especially true in the 21st century economy, which promises to be based foremost on knowledge. And that is why the U.S. needs, particularly at this juncture, 21st century American standards for its schools.

Specifically, the collapse of the US education system is dooming US competitiveness – absent educational reinvigoration, US competitiveness will decline leaving the US vulnerable to global conflict and hegemony collapse McNeill, Heritage Foundation Homeland Security Policy Analyst, et al, 6/16/2009 [Lips, Heritage Foundation Senior Policy Analyst, Marshall, Heritage Foundation Domestic Policy Studies Director, and Carafano, Ph.D., Heritage Foundation Defense and Homeland Security Senior Research Fellow, "Improving U.S. Competitiveness with K-12 STEM Education and Training,' http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/sr0057.cfm]

Every day, a new technology is brought to market by the STEM workforce, enabling people around the world to live longer, better lives. From computer chips to microwaves, from cell phones to antibiotics, access to technology and technological innovation is what separates the developed world from developing nations. The U.S. depends on science, technology, engineering, and math to maintain its position as the world superpower. In today’s world, technology begets technology. Multidisciplinary research is a prerequisite for any nation to maintain, let alone gain, a competitive edge. The physicist must work with the structural engineer to create alterna- tive energy sources; neither can do it alone. The ocean engineer must work with the nuclear engineer to create world-class submarines. Such technologies keep the economy thriving and protect the country in times of war. Advances in robotics can improve manufacturing. When a company fails to make progress in materials science, it means a competitor’s microchips will be smaller. Falling behind in any technological field has a detrimental domino effect because every field is dependent on the others. For years, the U.S.-dominated science and technology fields filed record numbers of patents, which in turn empowered its military and fueled its economy. But times are changing. China has gained ground in electrical engi- neering and computing, and India has made enormous strides toward becoming the leader in accounting and finan- cial services. Ninety-five percent of Fortune 500 CEOs believe that there is a severe shortage of U.S. citizens working in STEM fields. Sixty-eight percent believe that the U.S. is less focused on STEM than other countries. In America, K–12 education is compulsory. Even so, 30 percent of 18- to 22-year-olds do not have a high school diploma. Every year, there are 200,000 U.S. engineering jobs that need to be filled and every year only 60,000 U.S. engineers graduate—leaving more than two-thirds of these STEM positions vacant. While STEM engineering work can arguably be outsourced to other nations, such as China and India (each of which graduates 600,000 engineers per year), continually sending U.S. work to be performed in other countries is not a sustainable solution: Over time glo- balization will directly and negatively impact America’s industrial economy, national defense, and homeland security. In some parts of the world, the positive correlation between STEM expertise and economic prosperity has been recognized with increased investment. India, for example, has recently experienced a 600 percent increase in research and development (R&D) centers. These centers are not only funded by Indian companies but by U.S. com- panies as well—evidence that U.S. graduates are not meeting domestic business demands in quantity or in quality. If the U.S. stays on its current trajectory, more and more high-tech, high-paying jobs will be sent overseas. But the STEM crisis extends far beyond economic prosperity. In an alarming development, America is rapidly moving toward a future where its top defense technologies are invented, designed, and manufactured in foreign countries, leaving the U.S. vulnerable in times of war.

Hegemony prevents multiple scenarios for nuclear use – withdrawal ensures escalating crisis – hegemony will check all of your impacts Robert Kagan, Sr. Associate Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Harvard PhD, September, 2007 (“End of Dreams; Return of History” http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/8552512.html)

The jostling for status and influence among these ambitious nations and would-be nations is a second defining feature of the new post-Cold War international system. Nationalism in all its forms is back, if it ever went away, and so is international competition for power, influence, honor, and status. American predominance prevents these rivalries from intensifying — its regional as well as its global predominance. Were the United States to diminish its influence in the regions where it is currently the strongest power, the other nations would settle disputes as great and lesser powers have done in the past: sometimes through diplomacy and accommodation but often through confrontation and wars of varying scope, intensity, and destructiveness. One novel aspect of such a multipolar world is that most of these powers would possess nuclear weapons. That could make wars between them less likely, or it could simply make them more catastrophic. It is easy but also dangerous to underestimate the role the United States plays in providing a measure of stability in the world even as it also disrupts stability. For instance, the United States is the dominant naval power everywhere, such that other nations cannot compete with it even in their home waters. They either happily or grudgingly allow the United States Navy to be the guarantor of international waterways and trade routes, of international access to markets and raw materials such as oil. Even when the United States engages in a war, it is able to play its role as guardian of the waterways. In a more genuinely multipolar world, however, it would not. Nations would compete for naval dominance at least in their own regions and possibly beyond. Conflict between nations would involve struggles on the oceans as well as on land. Armed embargos, of the kind used in World War i and other major conflicts, would disrupt trade flows in a way that is now impossible. Such order as exists in the world rests not merely on the goodwill of peoples but on a foundation provided by American power. Even the European Union, that great geopolitical miracle, owes its founding to American power, for without it the European nations after World War ii would never have felt secure enough to reintegrate Germany. Most Europeans recoil at the thought, but even today Europe ’s stability depends on the guarantee, however distant and one hopes unnecessary, that the United States could step in to check any dangerous development on the continent. In a genuinely multipolar world, that would not be possible without renewing the danger of world war. People who believe greater equality among nations would be preferable to the present American predominance often succumb to a basic logical fallacy. They believe the order the world enjoys today exists independently of American power. They imagine that in a world where American power was diminished, the aspects of international order that they like would remain in place. But that ’s not the way it works. International order does not rest on ideas and institutions. It is shaped by configurations of power. The international order we know today reflects the distribution of power in the world since World War ii, and especially since the end of the Cold War. A different configuration of power, a multipolar world in which the poles were Russia, China, the United States, India, and Europe, would produce its own kind of order, with different rules and norms reflecting the interests of the powerful states that would have a hand in shaping it. Would that international order be an improvement? Perhaps for Beijing and Moscow it would. But it is doubtful that it would suit the tastes of enlightenment liberals in the United States and Europe. The current order, of course, is not only far from perfect but also offers no guarantee against major conflict among the world ’s great powers. Even under the umbrella of unipolarity, regional conflicts involving the large powers may erupt. War could erupt between China and Taiwan and draw in both the United States and Japan. War could erupt between Russia and Georgia, forcing the United States and its European allies to decide whether to intervene or suffer the consequences of a Russian victory. Conflict between India and Pakistan remains possible, as does conflict between Iran and Israel or other Middle Eastern states. These, too, could draw in other great powers, including the United States. Such conflicts may be unavoidable no matter what policies the United States pursues. But they are more likely to erupt if the United States weakens or withdraws from its positions of regional dominance. This is especially true in East Asia, where most nations agree that a reliable American power has a stabilizing and pacific effect on the region. That is certainly the view of most of China ’s neighbors. But even China, which seeks gradually to supplant the United States as the dominant power in the region, faces the dilemma that an American withdrawal could unleash an ambitious, independent, nationalist Japan. In Europe, too, the departure of the United States from the scene — even if it remained the world’s most powerful nation — could be destabilizing. It could tempt Russia to an even more overbearing and potentially forceful approach to unruly nations on its periphery. Although some realist theorists seem to imagine that the disappearance of the Soviet Union put an end to the possibility of confrontation between Russia and the West, and therefore to the need for a permanent American role in Europe, history suggests that conflicts in Europe involving Russia are possible even without Soviet communism. If the United States withdrew from Europe — if it adopted what some call a strategy of “offshore balancing” — this could in time increase the likelihood of conflict involving Russia and its near neighbors, which could in turn draw the United States back in under unfavorable circumstances. It is also optimistic to imagine that a retrenchment of the American position in the Middle East and the assumption of a more passive, “offshore” role would lead to greater stability there. The vital interest the United States has in access to oil and the role it plays in keeping access open to other nations in Europe and Asia make it unlikely that American leaders could or would stand back and hope for the best while the powers in the region battle it out. Nor would a more “even-handed” policy toward Israel, which some see as the magic key to unlocking peace, stability, and comity in the Middle East, obviate the need to come to Israel ’s aid if its security became threatened. That commitment, paired with the American commitment to protect strategic oil supplies for most of the world, practically ensures a heavy American military presence in the region, both on the seas and on the ground. The subtraction of American power from any region would not end conflict but would simply change the equation. In the Middle East, competition for influence among powers both inside and outside the region has raged for at least two centuries. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism doesn’t change this. It only adds a new and more threatening dimension to the competition, which neither a sudden end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians nor an immediate American withdrawal from Iraq would change. The alternative to American predominance in the region is not balance and peace. It is further competition. The region and the states within it remain relatively weak. A diminution of American influence would not be followed by a diminution of other external influences. One could expect deeper involvement by both China and Russia, if only to secure their interests. 18 And one could also expect the more powerful states of the region, particularly Iran, to expand and fill the vacuum. It is doubtful that any American administration would voluntarily take actions that could shift the balance of power in the Middle East further toward Russia, China, or Iran. The world hasn ’t changed that much. An American withdrawal from Iraq will not return things to “normal” or to a new kind of stability in the region. It will produce a new instability, one likely to draw the United States back in again. The alternative to American regional predominance in the Middle East and elsewhere is not a new regional stability. In an era of burgeoning nationalism, the future is likely to be one of intensified competition among nations and nationalist movements. Difficult as it may be to extend American predominance into the future, no one should imagine that a reduction of American power or a retraction of American influence and global involvement will provide an easier path.

Scenario Two: Democracy

Elimiating economic segregation and rebuilding the education system is critical to revive US democracy and civic engagement Kahlenberg, Century Foundation Senior Fellow, American Education Expert, 2003 [Richard, All Together Now, p. 19-21]

The other two key goals of public schools—to promote the workings of democracy and to build a unified nation—are also being severely undermined by growing economic and racial isolation in the schools. It cannot be good for society when many white students grow up seeing black people primarily as criminals on the nightly television news broadcast; or when black ghetto residents fear leaving their neighborhoods in the belief that if they do so they arc likely to he lynched by the Ku Klux Klan. It cannot be good when poor black schools are filled with children who believe the Central Intelligence Agency has planted drugs in the ghetto or that acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a white conspiracy while in other all-white middle-class schools children are terrified of black people. It cannot be good when an all-white jury acquits Rodney King’s assailants or a nearly all-black jury acquits Nicole Brown-Simpson’s assailant. Even conservatives like Lawrence Mead acknowledge that “the solution for the disadvantaged must mean integration, that is, an end to the separation so that the disadvantaged can publicly interact with others and be accepted by them as equals:’ For one thing, the prevalence of separate schools for rich and poor undercuts the primary lesson of democracy—that we are all social equals—whereas the creation of common access to common schools will underline it. Deborah Meier writes that m school, kids sit down next to their classmates, whoever they are. Parents proudly come together at school concerts, weep together at graduations, and congregate in times of crisis at public hearings and PTA meetings. Public schools therefore offer opportunity for a sense of community otherwise sorely missing, for putting faces and names to people we might otherwise see as mere statistics or categories.” The common school—attended by children from all backgrounds— reinforces democracy and is, indeed, ‘a manifestation of the social contract” in the words of Kern Alexander. The journalist Charles Peters recalls that the public school he attended while growing up in Charleston, West Virginia, though horribly segregated by race, was economically integrated: ‘Rich and poor were brought together so that we could get to know one another and acquire a faith in democracy that was not theoretical but grounded in real life” This economic integration, Peters says, helped prevent the middle class from making the error of the liberal who assumes that the poor are all deserving Eon that of the conservative who thinks they are all lazy or dumb.’ If we in America prize tolerance of others, we must realize that separation impedes that goal. Most educators believe, similarly, that economic and racial diversity in schooling is part of a good education In addition, separation naturally undermines loyalty and patriotism among those left out and left behind. Segregated schools undercut loyalty indirectly and sometimes even explicitly. An Afrocentric charter school in Michigan observes African Independence Day and Malcolm X Remembrance Day rather than Labor Day. Memorial Day, or Presidents’ Day. The school newsletter states that ‘the traditional concept of Thanksgiving, like the Fourth of July, really has nothing to do with us,’ and students begin the school day with a pledge “to my African nation.” Another Michigan charter school has an almost entirely Armenian student body and faculty, and the principal keeps a small Armenian flag next to the American flag on her desk.3’ If entire groups are educated in separate schools, this isolated population may grow disaffected and alienated and be more open to demagogues. from Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton to David Duke and Pat Buchanan. Conservatives sometimes criticize the public schools for failing to promote assimilation and for fostering tribalism through multiculturalism, but they rarely pause to ask whether the de facto economic and racial segregation of students might be a contributor to this balkanization. Only common schools can make the rhetorical lessons—we are all in this together, we must rely on each other—ring true to rich and poor alike. As our nation grows increasingly diverse, racially, ethnically, and religiously—with immigration surging to rates unknown since the late nineteenth century—there is now, as never before, the need for cohesion. “What happens when people of different ethnic origins, speaking different languages and professing different religions, settle in the same geographic locality and live under the same political sovereignty?” asks Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in The Disuniting of America. Unless a common purpose binds them together, tribal hostilities will drive them apart.” The public schools arc meant to “Americanize” immigrants, with the hope of “forging common cultural bonds that transcend demographic and economic differences.”

Further, reinvigoratin of US democracy is critical to global democracy Fukuyama, John hopkins International Studies School International Political Economy Professor and International Development Program Director, and McFaul, Hoover Senior Fellow, Stanford Political Science Professor and Center on Democracy Director, 2008 [Francis, Michael, "Should Democracy Be Promoted or Demoted," http://www.twq.com/08winter/docs/08winter_fukuyama.pdf]

Inspiration for democrats struggling against autocracy and a model for lead- ers in new democracies are two U.S. exports now in short supply. Since the beginning of the republic, the U.S. experiment with democracy has provided hope, ideas, and technologies for others working to build democratic insti- tutions. Foreign visitors to the United States have been impressed by what they have seen, and U.S. diplomats, religious missionaries, and businesspeo- ple traveling abroad have inspired others by telling the story of U.S. democ- racy. In the second half of the twentieth century, during which the United States developed more intentional means for promoting democracy abroad, the preservation and advertisement of the U.S. democratic model remained a core instrument.

Democracy is key to solve nuclear war and extinction Diamond, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, 95 [Larry, Stanford Univ. Political Science and Sociology professor, former Baghdad CPA senior adviser, "Promoting Democracy in the 1990s," http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/ccpdc/pubs/di/fr.htm]

This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades. In the former Yugoslavia nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly powerful international crime syndicates that have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly corrupted the institutions of tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its provisions for legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness. The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They do not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically "cleanse" their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies do not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another. Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring trading partnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable climates for investment. They are more environmentally responsible because they must answer to their own citizens, who organize to protest the destruction of their environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties since they value legal obligations and because their openness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements in secret. Precisely because, within their own borders, they respect competition, civil liberties, property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the only reliable foundation on which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built.

Scenerio Three: Racism Integrated schools change racist mindsets – it causes the rethinking of stereotypes to dismantle prejudices Joe Feagin, Texas A&M professor of sociology and liberal arts, 2006, “Systemic Racism, p. 308

Efforts to counter and change the white racial frame can be undertaken for all ages, but such efforts are especially important for children. Currently, the substantially segregated U.S. educational system colonizes young white (and other) minds with the white racial frame. If we are to dismantle the system of racism, this educational system must be dramatically reformed so that it is reasonably integrated along racial lines and, most especially, provides all the country's teachers and youth with the tools to recognize clearly, analyze critically, and replace substantially or completely the white frame with its many racial stereotypes and other bits of racialized misinformation, emotions, and inclinations to discriminate. By the time white children are in school, most already hold negative views of Americans of color. Their stereotyped views must be directly challenged and replaced in a new array of required school courses. At an early age, students everywhere need to be taught in schools and other settings just how to break down and critically analyze the many racial-ethnic stereotypes of this society. In addition, teachers and other change agents can insist actively and constantly on African Americans and other Americans of color being viewed seriously as equal and valuable members of society from whose creativity all can benefit. An accurate racial and ethnic history of the United States should now be provided to all children, and indeed all adults, so that they can understand not only the origins and realities of systemic racism but also the many contributions to the society of all groups of Americans. Historian Howard Zinn has accented the power of information and its dissemination through social networks. Individuals speaking out frequently with accurate information on systemic racism can be a start toward significant racial change. No one is born thinking critically about the oppressive realities of the society around them. Each person who learned to think critically did so in response to education of some type, in response to new societal information. There was a moment in our lives (or a month, or a year) when certain facts appeared before us, startled us, and then caused us to question beliefs that we strongly fixed in our consciousness-embedded there by years of family prejudices, orthodox schooling, imbibing of newspapers, radio, and television.

Racism makes extinction inevitable – it underlies all violence, and triggers nuclear conflict Joe Feagin, Texas A&M professor of sociology and liberal arts, 2006, “Systemic Racism, p. 321-2

CONCLUSION: A RENEWED ETHIC OF "OTHERS PRESERVATION" The reality of systemic racism in U.S. society is that the white majority-including most white decision makers in local, state, and federal governments-have never listened seriously to the pained voices and oppression-honed perspectives of African Americans and other Americans of color. Only by bringing in and attending to the perspectives and experiences of all Americans can the United States expect to meet the many challenges of an unknown, but certainly difficult, societal future. A great expansion of social and political democracy will make much essential knowledge finally available for the long-term improvement of still-fledgling democracies like the United States. It is well past time for whites, including white leaders, to listen carefully to, and heed the often sage advice of, African Americans and other Americans of color. Throughout this book, we have seen the remarkable and profound insights of African Americans into an array of important social justice and equality issues for people in this country and abroad. We have encountered concrete visions of a socially healthy United States and, indeed, of a socially healthy world. Listen to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. In his final book, King suggested that all human beings have inherited a "great world house" in which we must find a way to live together without so much major conflict: From the time immemorial human beings have lived by the principle that "self-preservation is the first law of life.” But this is a false assumption. I would say that other-preservation is the first law of life precisely because we cannot preserve self without being concerned about preserving other selves. No present-day society would exist but for the contributions to human knowledge, insight, and advances that people in many other societies have made in the present and the past. Moreover, all life today is inter-dependent. Not only is this true ecologically, but it is also true in social, and political terms. For example, the existence of nuclear weapons in a few countries is a threat to the entire planet's survival, and current racial and ethnic tensions might at some future point trigger a nuclear holocaust. Colonialism, imperialism, and multinational capitalism has resulted in the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few-and very disproportionately whites of European background. They are unjustly enriched while many are unjustly impoverished. In the long run, this unjust inequality does not work for humanity and its survival. Thus, we need to put this first law of life at the center of a new ethic of rights and responsibility: the law of others preservation. Without preserving others, we cannot in the long run preserve ourselves and our posterity. No person is an island; all residents of the United States are part of the same deeply troubled society. All will thus benefit, yet to varying degrees from a large-scale change in racial oppression, as well as from challenging in the often related oppressions of class and gender. Major racial changes will mean that whites will lose much in the way of racialized power and privilege. Still, the payoff for them and for the entire society is large, for real liberty, justice, and equality are impossible without major changes in the racially oppressive structures of this society. Indeed, this planet will not survive much longer if we continue to rely so heavily on the white men now at the helm for key ideas, policies, and actions in regard to the world's ecology, economy, and politics. Systemic racism has killed not only people, but many important human values, scores of excellent ideas and countless innovations and inventions. One need not be melodramatic to suggest that the survival of the planet likely depends upon the elimination of racial oppression and other major social oppressions.

Thus the plan: The United States Supreme Court should overrule Milliken v. Bradley 418 U.S. 717 (1974), ruling that courts have authority to impose inter-district remedies to a single-district socio-economic segregation problem in instances of concentrated poverty.

Contention Three is Solvency

The United States Supreme Court must overrule Milliken v. Bradley to allow for effective inter-district remedies to economic segregation – every alternative will sustain class isolation Ryan, UVA Associate Law Professor, November 1999 [James, "ARTICLE: Schools, Race, and Money," 109 Yale L.J. 249]

Today's urban schools are not the product of accident, unadulterated preference, or simple economics. Rather, urban schools have been largely shaped by two complementary forces: residential segregation and the Court's decision in Milliken I. Residential segregation and particularly the exodus of middle-class whites from central cities have served not only to isolate African-American students, but also to concentrate the effects of poverty in densely populated urban neighborhoods and thus in the public schools in those neighborhoods. Milliken I essentially immunized suburban schools from the reach of desegregation plans, thereby cutting off access to wealthier school systems and providing a "safe" haven for middle-class families seeking to exit urban schools. These factors are discussed in turn. 1. Residential Segregation The long and complicated history of residential segregation has been explored elsewhere and need not be recounted in detail here. n113 To understand the limitations of school finance reform, however, it is necessary to describe briefly the current extent, historical explanations, and continuing consequences of residential segregation. n114 The most important demographic factor affecting urban schools, which dwarfs all others, is the intense residential segregation among blacks and whites in metropolitan areas. This segregation began at the turn of this century as Southern blacks migrated to Northern cities; it became substantial in the 1940s, grew entrenched in the decades that followed, and remains remarkably high today. n115 Because most public school students are assigned to schools in the neighborhoods - or at least in the municipalities - in which they reside, residential segregation typically means school segregation. And residential segregation abounds. Indeed, extensive residential segregation exists in nearly every metropolitan area in the country. A common gauge of segregation is the dissimilarity index, which measures the percentage of persons who would have to move in order for neighborhoods to reflect the proportion of blacks in a given geographic area. n116 The higher the index, the more intense the segregation. In 1990, the average dissimilarity index for Northern cities was 77.8%; for Southern cities it was 66.5%. n117 Although these averages are down a few percentage points from the 1970 figures, they are still higher than any level ever recorded for any other racial or ethnic group. n118 In sixteen large cities, moreover, blacks live under what Massey and Denton call "hypersegregated" conditions: They live in large contiguous settlements of densely inhabited neighborhoods that are clustered around the centers of cities. n119 In these cities - which include Atlanta, Baltimore, [*277] Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, and St. Louis, and which together house one-third of all African Americans - blacks are not likely to see whites in their own neighborhoods, the ones adjacent to theirs, or the ones adjacent to those; in short, they are likely to have little direct contact with the rest of American society. n120 Finally, just as no other group has historically experienced the same isolation as have blacks, no other contemporary group, including poor Hispanics, even approaches the level of isolation currently experienced by African Americans. n121 Significantly, the residential segregation that exists in metropolitan areas does not typically occur within the same towns or municipalities, but rather occurs between municipalities. n122 Residential segregation most often and most dramatically tracks the line between city and suburb. In the last forty years, whites have left the cities for the suburbs in droves, leaving behind cities increasingly dominated by minorities, primarily blacks and Hispanics. By the end of the 1970s, the pattern of a black urban core surrounded by a ring of white suburbs had become common, and it has persisted. n123 As of 1990, for example, in six of the eight largest cities in the country (all with populations over one million) minorities made up over half of the population; the same is true in eight of the fourteen cities with [*278] populations between 500,000 and one million. n124 Indeed, racial segregation between cities and suburbs is so great that social scientists find that "it is no longer appropriate to measure segregation within cities alone." n125 Although middle-class blacks have also left the city in the last couple of decades, the rate of black suburbanization does not come close to that of whites, and the percentage of blacks in suburbs as opposed to central cities is tiny. n126 As of 1990, for example, African Americans constituted only 8.7% of suburban residents in twelve of the largest metropolitan areas in the country, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, St. Louis, and Boston. n127 Even within the suburbs, there is a good deal of residential segregation, with blacks living primarily in older suburbs closest to urban areas and in well-defined sections of more distant suburbs. n128 While there is hardly room to debate the extent of residential segregation, there are ample grounds for disagreement regarding the historical and continuing causes of that segregation. There is consensus, however, that four factors have played a role: public discrimination, private discrimination, preferences, and income (or socioeconomic status). More precisely, there is consensus that residential segregation has been encouraged by public and private discrimination against blacks; that current residential segregation can be partially but not completely explained by preferences; and that current residential segregation can be partially but not completely explained by economic differences between whites and blacks. n129 Beyond this basic consensus, a fair bit of disagreement persists as to how these various causal threads have interacted and which ones have been or continue to be the most influential. n130 Rather than attempt to disentangle this causal web, which is probably impossible in any event, it is sufficient for the purposes of this Article to note that all of the various explanations regarding the creation and maintenance of residential segregation, save one, point to race relations as a crucial factor. n131 Public discrimination and private discrimination, of course, [*279] operate on the basis of race. Preferences for living within a single racial group also operate on the basis of race and on the basis of perceived differences and prior history between blacks and whites. The only factor that does not operate directly on the basis of race is economics or socioeconomics, but the available empirical evidence indicates that income level and socioeconomic status explain only a small portion of the existing residential segregation. n132 That race relations remain a paramount and direct cause of residential segregation carries important implications for school finance litigation and school desegregation, to which I will turn below. Before addressing those implications, however, some attention must be paid to the impact that residential segregation has had on African-American urban communities. The primary consequence of the residential segregation of African Americans in urban communities has been the concentration of poverty and the deleterious conditions that tend to accompany it. As William Julius Wilson and other scholars have noted, the restructuring of urban economies in the 1970s resulted in the loss of manufacturing and industrial jobs in cities and their replacement with lower-paying service-sector jobs. n133 Combined with rising inflation, this urban restructuring drove up already high rates of black poverty, and this poverty was concentrated because of extremely high levels of residential segregation. The movement of middle-class blacks out of inner cities aggravated these endemic economic changes, [*280] although the extent and significance of this migration are the subject of continuing debate. n134 Concentrated poverty, in turn, is often associated with ancillary ills, such as the withdrawal of commercial and retail institutions, decaying neighborhoods, high crime, high levels of drug use, welfare dependency, high rates of joblessness, unwed childbearing, and the development of an "oppositional" culture that devalues work and marriage and generally inverts middle-class values. n135 There is, to be sure, a raging debate as to whether concentrated poverty is solely or even primarily responsible for the conditions of social decay in black neighborhoods. n136 But it is obvious that, whatever the causal connection, residential segregation has served to concentrate these deleterious conditions in black neighborhoods and has created an environment for black children wherein "drug use, joblessness, welfare dependency, teenage childbearing, and unwed parenthood ... are not only common but the norm." n137 The concentration of poverty, the conditions of social decay, and especially the emergence of an oppositional culture all have a profoundly negative effect on the public schools in African-American neighborhoods, as I shall explain below. 2. Milliken I Card Continues…

Card Continues… The second piece of the urban school puzzle is Milliken I, n138 in which the Court held, as described above, that an interdistrict desegregation remedy could not be ordered without proof of an interdistrict violation. This holding made it extremely difficult for desegregation plans to extend beyond the reach of central cities and to include suburban schools, at least in the North and West where school districts are typically coterminous with [*281] municipal boundaries. (In the South, school districts often encompass entire counties and thus include both central cities and their suburbs.) n139 Although a significant number of Northern and Western cities intentionally segregated students and thus were ordered to desegregate, Milliken I typically precluded extending desegregation remedies to suburban districts. n140 The consequences of this limitation cannot be gainsaid, and, indeed, it does not seem an exaggeration to identify Milliken I as second only in importance to Brown I among the Court's school desegregation decisions. n141 As a result of Milliken I, and in light of existing patterns of residential segregation, desegregation plans confined to urban areas could not achieve significant levels of integration because, as mentioned earlier, there simply were not enough white students left in most urban school systems. n142 The white students that remained, moreover, were typically poor themselves and often attended inadequate schools. Busing students within the city thus often meant transporting poor white and poor black students from shoddy, single-race schools to shoddy, integrated schools. Boston is a revealing example, where poor black students from Roxbury were bused to South Boston High, which was previously attended primarily by poor, white, Irish Catholics. n143 Limiting desegregation remedies in this way only heightened opposition and a sense of unfairness among the whites forced to [*282] participate. n144 The limitation also provided a perfect incentive for continued white flight from central cities. Much has been written regarding the link between desegregation and white flight, with little agreement on the precise impact that the former has had on the latter. n145 There is ample evidence to support the argument that desegregation plans themselves often added to existing patterns of white flight. n146 But there is also evidence demonstrating that white suburban flight is an independent phenomenon and has occurred in cities, such as New York and Atlanta, whose schools have never undergone desegregation. n147 What seems plain, however, is that Milliken I, combined with earlier decisions requiring busing within city districts, unintentionally encouraged white flight with both carrot and stick. n148 As Professor Jeffries has explained, busing within the cities displaced white students from their neighborhood schools and thus gave middle-class whites a reason to leave; refusal to include the suburbs in busing plans, in turn, protected white suburbs and thus gave middle-class whites a place to go. n149 Empirical evidence bears out this hypothesis. Cities that have undergone city-only desegregation plans generally have also experienced greater degrees of white flight than have cities involved in a metropolitan-wide desegregation plan. n150 Although the evidence concerning the precise [*283] degree of comparative white flight varies, one study indicates that city school districts lose up to twice the number of white students that countywide districts lose when desegregation plans are implemented. n151 The reasons are not hard to fathom: The more extensive the desegregation plan, the harder and more costly it becomes to escape. Moving to the suburbs will not enable parents to avoid a metropolitan-wide desegregation plan, and moving beyond the suburbs is often impractical for employment reasons. Private schools thus become the only alternative, but these are relatively costly and have traditionally drained far fewer white students from urban public schools than has suburbanization. n152 From an educational standpoint, the more significant consequence of the limitations imposed by Milliken I has to do with class rather than race. Closing off the suburbs meant that city schools would be dominated by poor children, while suburban schools would be dominated by [*284] middle-class children. n153 As explained in the next Section, the consequences of isolating schools filled primarily with impoverished children have been disastrous.

Inter-district remedies for people within poverty effectively end economic and racial segregation - this is critical to address the educational costs of poverty Goedert, Maryland Assistant Attorney General, June 1988 [JoAnn, "CASE COMMENT: Jenkins v. Missouri: The Future of Interdistrict School Desegregation.," 76 Geo. L.J. 1867]

Today, it is generally accepted that some degree of "white flight" occurs in the first few years after the imposition of mandatory school desegregation in a given school district. n65 The theory has not, however, been used successfully to retard desegregation relief in the courts. n66 In fact, it ultimately offers compelling [*1879] policy support for the basic premise of the Milliken plaintiffs: that in many cities, effective desegregation cannot occur in the absence of interdistrict relief. The mitigation of "white flight" by interdistrict relief is a logically attractive proposition, for "[w]here a remedy for de jure segregation within a city's school system seems likely to produce substantial [white] flight . . ., the clearest way to prevent that flight is to increase the pool of whites within the scope of the remedy." n67 Moreover, limited experience in the few areas which have implemented metropolitan plans supports this premise. In seven recently studied metropolitan areas with interdistrict plans, school desegregation appears to have led to more integrated residential patterns. n68 In areas which include an exemption from mandatory busing for integrated neighborhoods in their interdistrict plans, such as Louisville, Kentucky, racially mixed communities have flourished. But in urban centers with single-district remedies in which raw demographic reality precludes the eradication of racial identifiability in the schools, the opposite trends -- greater residential and school segregation -- have occurred. n69 Intradistrict plans may be attacked on equity grounds as well. They inflict on integrated urban communities most of the desegregation burden while insulating nearby suburban districts with a tradition of de facto segregation from participation in the remedy. Single-district remedies then work to punish the very behavior which Brown set out to promote. The ramifications of this inequity extend beyond unfairness to individual city residents; they force the school desegregation debate into an alarming class analysis. "White flight," abetted by mandatory school desegregation, is not a random process; its participants mainly include middle and upper-middle class whites who can afford to move across school district lines. Thus, the Milliken principles "embody a social policy that whites with the least income, status, and power must bear the entire burden of desegregation, while those who can afford upper-income housing in segregated suburbs may be completely [*1880] insulated." n70 In many cities, this phenomenon has been aggravated recently by the similar movement of middle class blacks to suburbs. n71 As a result, central cities find themselves in increasing financial trouble. As more prosperous residents leave the city, and commercial enterprise follows to the suburbs, the differential between suburban and urban tax bases widens. Nowhere does this trend have greater impact than in the urban school system. n72 Confronted by a costly intradistrict desegregation plan, the city must also cope with diminishing financial resources. The class segregation that results from many single district remedies threatens more than the plan's financial success. Educational achievement data also suggest that significant benefits of school desegregation arise only when socioeconomic, as well as racial, integration occurs. n73 Thus, the most substantial gains in minority test scores have taken place pursuant to interdistrict remedies. n74 Interdistrict relief is not unassailable from a policy perspective. The most common criticism voiced is its purported administrative impracticality. But as Justice White's analysis of the proposed Detroit-area plan demonstrates, neither travel times nor distances necessarily increase with consolidation, and may even be less than in an intradistrict scheme. n75 Efficiency may be particularly enhanced when consolidation involves the subdivision of the metropolitan area into several districts, each smaller than the former inner-city system. n76

Economic integration repairs the school system – the plan results in three mutually reinforcing trends to resolve educational disparity stemming from poverty – peers, parents and money McUsic, Harvard Law School Visiting Professor, March 2004 [Molly, "SYMPOSIUM: BROWN AT FIFTY: THE FUTURE OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS," 117 Harv. L. Rev. 1334]

Education research on the results of desegregation, together with studies of the factors that correlate with high academic achievement, have provided support for the theory advocated in Brown: integration is the best, and perhaps only, way to provide an equal educational opportunity. It has been long known that family background is highly correlated with academic performance. n117 Students from poor, uneducated families do worse in school. This, of course, is a discouraging conclusion for social reformers because changing a child's parents is one option that is not available. The now familiar corollary, however, is more promising - that income and education of parents of a child's fellow students also correlates highly with performance. In other words, poor students who attend middle-class or wealthy schools do much better according to a wide assortment of measures than do poor students concentrated in predominantly poor schools. n118 Similarly, children from families above the poverty level do worse when attending [*1356] high-poverty schools. n119 Social science research demonstrates that class integration in schools has numerous salutary educational effects for underachieving poor students, from higher test scores, to higher graduation rates, to increased college attendance, to success in the job and housing markets. n120 There have been a variety of theories on why this might be so. One explanation focuses on other students. Group socialization theory contends that children's behavior, values, and goals are the product of their genetic makeup and their peers. n121 Children identify with a group of others like themselves and take on the norms of that group. They learn to behave the way that people of their age and sex are expected to behave, and they learn these norms from each other. Social scientists have offered a number of explanations for how this occurs. One is that children may not have thought of a certain behavior [*1357] until they see it modeled for them by their friends; another is that children determine whether a behavior is acceptable by observing whether others in school engage in it; a third is that prevalence of the behavior may equate to decreased risk and increased payoff given a relatively fixed level of adult supervision; and a final explanation is that the prevalence of the behavior could also affect the social returns. Through these four mechanisms - modeling, information cascades, resource swamping, and social norms - the attitudes and actions of children can influence others. n122 So, for example, a study of African-American children from low-income households headed by a single mother found the children to be more delinquent than those children from middle-class, two-parent households if they lived and went to school in low-income neighborhoods, but not if they lived and went to school in white, middle-class neighborhoods. In both instances, the African-American children from the fatherless, low-income families had a level of delinquency comparable to their fellow students. n123 Similarly, whether students learn or not is based on peer group norms: the higher the educational aspiration of the peer group, the more likely that all the students will succeed. "High expectations are contagious." n124 The influence of successful peers could explain why children's academic achievements are greater when they are removed from high-poverty schools. Children who live and learn in areas of concentrated poverty encounter few, if any, academically successful role models. When these poor children are instead taught in the presence of a sufficient core of successful, middle-class students, they are immersed in attitudes and behaviors that encourage them to perform better. n125 A second possible explanation focuses on parents. Professor Liebman, relying on the argument made by Albert O. Hirschman in his famous work, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, n126 has argued that the advantage of middle-class and wealthy schools can be attributed to parents who actively participate in the school to make sure it is providing an adequate education for their children. These "education connoisseurs" are the consumers most likely to complain when quality diminishes. Unable to "exit" to convenient, alternative schools, these parents use their "voice" to complain about any perceived quality decline and to tell the school how to improve the educational product. High-poverty schools lack a sufficient number of these education connoisseur parents, and, as a result, poor schools have too few advocates agitating for quality. When poor children attend school with students whose parents are education connoisseurs, they too benefit from the better schooling demanded by those parents. n127 A third possible explanation is simply resources. While spending more money on poor schools has not been sufficient to raise academic achievement significantly, it may be because nobody has been willing to spend enough money for a long enough period to compensate for the high number of special-needs students who are more heavily concentrated in high-poverty schools. When poor students are collected in one school, the number of special needs can be overwhelming, leaving little funding left over for purely academic programs, even where funding is generous by per-pupil standards. Connecticut provides an example. In the 1991-1992 school year, the Hartford school district ranked highest among all districts in its region in overall district per-pupil expenditures. n128 However, after subtracting the expenditures for special needs programs, actual per-pupil spending on regular academic programming - instructional services, textbooks, instructional supplies, library books, and equipment and plant operation - was far less in Hartford than the regional or state average. By one measure, Hartford ranked 133rd in the state and last in the region. n129 No state has [*1359] yet been willing to fund poor urban schools at a level that would (after discounting the costs for special needs) finance a straightforward education curriculum at the same level enjoyed by the average suburban school. When poor students are dispersed among many schools, special needs do not squeeze out the needs of average students.

Only a Supreme Court ruling on poverty will spark a broad shift to incorporate the poor into our political process Taylor, Yale Law School, Former NAACP Legal Defense Fund Attorney, Former U.S. Commission on Civil Rights General Counsel and Staff Director, July 1986 [William, "ESSAY: Brown, Equal Protection, and the Isolation of the Poor.," 95 Yale L.J. 1700]

If the books were to be closed on Brown v. Board of Education today, the decision would have to be deemed a resounding success. What happened in the aftermath of the decision demonstrated how deeply entrenched and difficult to dislodge our racial caste system had been. But it also demonstrated that law -- including the law declared by federal courts in interpreting the Constitution -- can serve as a means of empowering the powerless, enabling them to make changes in their own lives which permit them to develop their potential and participate more fully in the society in which they live. Brown has also validated the role of the judiciary as a catalyst in helping to renew and revitalize our political processes. Apart from the success achieved in its own sphere, the movement for black civil rights has played an important role in spawning similar legal and political movements that have asserted the rights of women, Hispanic Americans, the disabled, the elderly, and other minority groups. Most of us have become more aware of the unjust limitations that government and society have imposed on minority citizens, women, the disabled and others and how our own prejudices and stereotypes have contributed to these barriers. Once aroused, this consciousness of injustice does not fade easily, even under the prod of regressive leadership. Thus, the progress that has been made is not likely to evaporate. But the gains of the past three decades have occurred against the backdrop of a society growing increasingly stratified by class and income status. For many, the "escape" routes to middle-class status have become far more difficult to negotiate. Black people, not surprisingly, constitute a disproportionately large segment of those who have become most deeply mired in poverty. In the approach that they have taken to civil rights remedies, the courts have been able to ameliorate the problem to some degree. They have approached the issues with an understanding that the caste system has had [*1735] severe and continuing impact on the lives of blacks, consequences that are real and that persist even though they resist precise measurements. Largely eschewing theoretical debates about "color blindness," the courts have sought in most cases to provide practical opportunities to black people, bounded only by the need to recognize the legitimate interests of others. However, practices and policies that isolate the poor and deny them access to resources and services needed to change their condition go far beyond the current reach of civil rights remedies. In approaching problems of class and wealth discrimination, the courts are faced with institutional limitations and problems even thornier than those they confronted in dealing with race. But that does not mean that the judiciary is without authority and responsibility. The judiciary remains the monitor of the integrity of the political process, the agency for compelling the other branches of government and the people to face up to issues we prefer to ignore. The response of the nation to problems of continuing discrimination and deprivation no doubt will emerge from the warring instincts of hope and fear, of generosity and meanness, that reside within each of us, and the quality of the political leadership that appeals to those instincts. The role of the judiciary is limited but crucial; if it performs its function, it may help our better natures to prevail.