Tuesday, December 12, 2006.

Welcome to Cato Daily Podcast.

I'm your host Anastasia Glova, and I'm on the phone with Cato's director of the Center for Educational Freedom,

Andrew Coulson.

And you will discuss the perils of forced integration in public schools and the two relevant

cases before the Supreme Court.

Parents involve the Seattle School District Number 1, and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education.

What's being argued before the Supreme Court in these two cases?

Well, the most controversial question that the court is going to rule on is the issue of whether

or not school districts can assign students to a school based solely on their race.

And this is extremely controversial because in an era when we're trying to promote higher quality education and more school choice, these students litigated

this case because they were refused admission to a school of their choice solely because of

their race.

Does forcefully integrating schools benefit students in any way?

Well, I think if you look at the history of compulsory integration policies,

they don't appear to have done even the most basic thing that they were intended to do, which is achieve racial balance at the school level.

The Harvard Civil Rights Project, for instance, has found that public schools today are a little more integrated

racially than they were before compulsory integration policies were introduced.

Haven't schools improved drastically since Brown v Board of Ed?

How the schools improved at all?

If you look at academic achievement, there has been very little improvement

over that period of time.

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