As vice president during the Obama administration, Biden helped push for changes to some drug-sentencing laws. But even so, for students, the practice was successful when it was properly implemented. Here’s how. “Such has not been the case. Senator Kamala Harris took on 2020 frontrunner Joe Biden during Thursday night's debate by highlighting his controversial history on the practice of desegregation bussing. Similar antibusing protests occurred in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and other cities in the 1960s. While antibusing politicians and parents dominated public discourse nationally, school officials and parents in Berkeley focused on how school buses could help enable a comprehensive desegregation plan to improve educational opportunities for students of color and low-income students.
This helped make them more politically palatable. Mr Biden has since denied opposing bussing overall, saying he was only against it being ordered by the Department of Education, and insisting he supported federal actions to fix segregation and had fought for civil rights throughout his political career. Berkeley was able to craft a successful school-desegregation plan in this context because of strong local leadership and a sense of civic purpose. Read here to learn more about busing in the United States. By Arthur Delaney and Ryan J. Reilly Democratic primary debate on Thursday night. As a result, the successes of school desegregation have been drowned out by a chorus of voices insisting busing was an inconvenient, unfair, and failed experiment. But it is not as widespread, and schools are becoming segregated again. A 2014 study by the Pew Research Center found that close to two-thirds of all US public school students attend schools where most students are the same ethnicity. To the extent that it is used today, busing is used to accomplish a mix of goals, such as providing students options for magnet schools or other schools of choice. ", Earlier this year, a spokesman for Biden told The Washington Post the presidential candidate "never thought busing was the best way to integrate schools in Delaware — a position which most people now agree with... As he said during those many years of debate, busing would not achieve equal opportunity. She recounted discrimination she experienced growing up, then turned to Biden, who earlier this month fondly recalled collaborating with two segregationist senators during his Senate career. On the second night of the 2020 Democratic debates, Sen. Kamala Harris called out former Vice President Joe Biden's political past and record on civil rights, specifically working with segregationists and his opposition to busing decades ago. He has also faced heat for his role in crafting the 1994 crime law that critics say swelled U.S. prison populations and disproportionately affected African Americans. #DemDebate2 pic.twitter.com/Ytb2xvOhux, Biden’s remarks had previously sparked rebukes from Harris and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), presenting perhaps the sharpest disagreement in the Democratic primary so far. ©2020 Verizon Media. The scholars Lisa Chavez and Erica Frankenberg argued in 2009, “The Berkeley plan is a proven success that has been very well received by the courts.”. ", Following the heated moment, Harris' official Twitter page shared a childhood photo of the presidential candidate with a simple, but moving caption: "There was a little girl in California who was bussed to school. When looking at desegregation and academic performance, busing was "very successful through the 1960s and 1970s, and even into the 1980s," Harris, the Tulane professor, told PolitiFact. However, many schools did not become "integrated until many years later" due to factors like a city's demographics — i.e.

But other education policies have taken a higher profile. Sen. Kamala Harris of California directly challenged former Vice President Joe Biden over his past opposition to federal busing policy, in a heated exchange on the second night of the first Democratic presidential primary debate. "But this did not occur," Harris said.
“There was little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” she said. Kamala Harris attacks Joe Biden's record on busing and working with segregationists in vicious exchange at Democratic debate Published Thu, Jun 27 … When Harris boarded a school bus in the fall of 1969 to attend Thousand Oaks Elementary School in an affluent part of North Berkeley, busing was already a hot-button political issue. Busing "is still an issue in some larger districts that have implemented economic integration plans," such as Wake County, N.C., and Louisville, Ky., said David J. Armor, an emeritus public policy at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. All rights reserved. But is it an issue today? So if history is going to teach policymakers and voters anything, it's that we need to pay attention to the past to ensure we're working to foster an inclusive, progressive nation for America's children. No desegregation plan is ever perfect, but innovative efforts that are given the time, resources, and support they need to succeed can make a real and lasting impact on students. Berkeley’s plan for elementary-school desegregation started in September 1968, with more than one-third of the district’s 9,000 students riding buses.

"For white students, these statistics are reversed: more than a third attend schools that are 90–100% white.". Before Brown, schools for black children were typically inferior to white schools and received far less funding from states. "The actual experience of students tended to be quite positive once these plans go past the controversies," Prof Delmont says, noting that studies following up on these students found they were beneficial in particular for students of colour.

"And that little girl was me. During the second Democratic presidential debate, Senator Kamala Harris of California challenged former Vice President Joe Biden regarding a topic that has received little attention in recent presidential elections: school desegregation. Since the 1990s, a series of court rulings released school districts from court-ordered desegregation plans, wrote Erica Frankenberg, Pennsylvania State University education professor. During these years, Biden was a "leading anti-busing crusader," said University of New Hampshire historian Jason Sokol. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com. Ms Harris accused the former vice-president of supporting segregationist senators and opposing bussing - an issue close to her heart as she herself was bussed to school every day, a part of the second class to integrate public schools in California. In 1954, the Supreme Court found racially segregated schools to be unconstitutional in the landmark Brown v Board of Education ruling. Northern congressmen responded to the anger expressed by many of their white constituents by writing antibusing provisions into the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Full article The rocky path of romance is never easy... Full article Daily news briefing direct to your inbox. And what policies have been adopted in its place? 801 3rd St. S While Biden did oppose federal involvement in busing, he backed the extension of the Voting Rights Act and other major civil rights legislation. Buses made the modern public-school system possible, enabling multigrade elementary schools and comprehensive high schools to replace one-room schools. Opponents have filed a lawsuit against desegregation efforts in Minneapolis-St. Paul, he said. The Biden campaign has pointed to comments by many African-American leaders and mayors who publicly called for an end to busing by the 1990s, including officials in St. Louis, Denver, Seattle and Cleveland. Ahead of the Democratic debate on July 30 and 31 — to be held in Detroit, which has a history of high levels of school segregation — we interviewed nearly a dozen experts on education policy to understand how school busing is, or isn’t, having an impact today. And I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground,” Harris said. St. Petersburg, FL The courts even began to frown on busing enacted voluntarily by local governments. By the 1970s, the method had evolved in some districts into two-way bussing, where white students were bussed to minority schools and black and Latino students were transported to white-majority schools. He also kept his taxpayer-funded Mercedes-Benz after slashing $400 million in government jobs and spending.”, “BLM Activist kills three people in a Louisville bar wearing a Breonna Taylor tee shirt last Friday.”, Photo shows “all the men who have killed police officers this year (2020).”. But what exactly is the history of busing in the United States?