Confronting a reality that many policy makers would prefer to ignore, contributors to this volume offer the latest information on the trend toward the racial and socioeconomic resegregation of southern schools. In the region that has achieved more widespread public school integration than any other since 1970, resegregation, combined with resource inequities and the current "accountability movement," is now bringing public education in the South to a critical crossroads.

In thirteen essays, leading thinkers in the field of race and public education present not only the latest data and statistics on the trend toward resegregation but also legal and policy analysis of why these trends are accelerating, how they are harmful, and what can be done to counter them. What's at stake is the quality of education available to both white and nonwhite students, they argue. This volume will help educators, policy makers, and concerned citizens begin a much-needed dialogue about how America can best educate its increasingly multiethnic student population in the twenty-first century.

Contributors:

Karen E. Banks, Wake County Public School System, Raleigh, N.C.

John Charles Boger, University of North Carolina School of Law

Erwin Chemerinsky, Duke Law School

Charles T. Clotfelter, Duke University

Susan Leigh Flinspach, University of California, Santa Cruz

Erica Frankenberg, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Catherine E. Freeman, U.S. Department of Education

Jay P. Heubert, Teachers College, Columbia University

Jennifer Jellison Holme, University of California, Los Angeles

Michal Kurlaender, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Helen F. Ladd, Duke University

Luis M. Laosa, Kingston, N.J.

Jacinta S. Ma, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Gary Orfield, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Gregory J. Palardy, University of Georgia

john a. powell, Ohio State University

Sean F. Reardon, Stanford University

Russell W. Rumberger, University of California, Santa Barbara

Benjamin Scafidi, Georgia State University

David L. Sjoquist, Georgia State University

Jacob L. Vigdor, Duke University

Amy Stuart Wells, Teachers College, Columbia University

John T. Yun, University of California, Santa Barbara