Boston’s disastrous failure to achieve peaceful desegregation of its schools three decades ago, particularly the mob violence at South Boston High School, and the transition of the Boston schools to overwhelmingly white enrollment, are commonly seen as areas why the region need not think about patterns of school segregation--nothing can be done about it. This thinking ignores the better experiences of many other cities and also the METCO program that is intact and still in high demand.

Also available at http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu

If desegregation plans were still in effect we would expect that as the share of whites in a state declined, white students would tend to be in schools that, on average, had an increased share of black students. In several states, however, even though the percentage of white students has declined significantly, the level of white contact with blacks actually fell.

Also avaialble at http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu