What happens if Americans fundamental freedoms are denied or deferred? What is the ideal of freedom? Boston, Massachusetts, has long been a crucible for social, cultural, and political change. Here was the shot heard 'round the world, stronghold of abolition, home to the U.S. Colored Troops, the birthplace of American literature.... Boston is also…

The U.S. Supreme Court declined an opportunity last week to rule on the constitutionality of a school district's policy of weighing race as a factor in assigning students to schools. It has sidestepped a potentially thorny sequel to its 2003 rulings on affirmative action in higher education and left several lower-court rulings as the best…

The desegregation of the Boston Public School System, initiated on June 21, 1974 by Federal District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity's Order, ended a decade of politically-inspired resistance in what is for the most part a working-class city of ethnic neighborhoods: the reassignment of about half of the first to twelfth graders began on September…

This report reviews the first year of integration, under the implementation of the Six-District Plan, of the elementary schools in Springfield, Massachusetts. Through this plan the school department changed the racial composition in five previously imbalanced elementary schools and integrated the elementary school system. Redistricting, the…

Describes how a Parent Council and school system administrators collaborated to develop a citywide magnet school desegregation plan, which increased parents' choices and introduced competition among public schools for the patronage of parents and students and for achievement of academic excellence. (RDN)

If one was an African-American student in a large Northern city 50 years ago, his public school, very likely, would have been segregated--even in New England. Only one year earlier, in "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas," the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that legally sanctioned school segregation violated the 14th Amendment…

Describes the curriculum reorganization and staff training involved in the desegregation of the Holyoke (Massachusetts) public schools. Suggests strategies for successful integration of a multicultural curriculum. (FMW)

Early one morning, September 8, 1965, Operation Exodus unfolded. Poor black parents, with much community support, initiated a school busing program whereby several hundred black children of all ages between five and 14 were to be bused from nearly all-black schools in the black community to predominantly or all-white schools in surrounding…

Describes five two-way bilingual education programs in Massachusetts: three in Boston, one in Holyoke, and one in Lawrence. Names and addresses of contact persons at each school are included. (PS)

Explains how careful planning can contribute to the success of controlled choice desegregation plans, using the approach developed in four Massachusetts communities. In this model, genuine collaborative planning involves every segment of the community. Surveys of parents, teachers, and principals provide necessary information for planning. (SLD)

The complex interactions which led to the implementation of the court-ordered desegregation plans for two cities in Massachusetts involve not only the courts but many levels of government. The school departments, the school committees, the mayors, the State Board of Education, the legislature, the governor, and the citizens of Massachusetts, all…