JCPS board OKs revised student-assignment plan

This from the Courier-Journal:

About 2,000 more elementary students in Jefferson County Public Schools will be allowed to attend schools closer to their homes this fall, as the school board voted unanimously Monday night to adopt a number of changes to its controversial student-assignment plan.

Under the proposal, the district will still have six clusters of elementary schools from which parents can choose — rather than doubling them to 12 as a previous plan proposed — yet give schools more credit for diversity within their enrollment areas.

Limited-English students also will be added in the diversity index for the first time, and kindergartners will not have to reapply to their same school for first grade — a previous requirement that upset many parents.

Though not as sweeping as earlier proposals, the changes will maintain integrated schools while reducing bus-ride times for some students and avoiding disruptions to school choice, district officials said...

JCPS assignment notifications confuse some elementary parents

This from Toni Konz at C-J:

Jefferson County Public Schools is being criticized by some parents who say they are confused and frustrated over they way the district is notifying them where their children can attend elementary school this fall.

District officials said they have sent out 626 letters notifying parents that their children have been granted at spot this fall at the popular magnet schools — Brandeis Elementary, the Brown School, Greathouse-Shryock, Audubon, Carter and Schaffner. Another 1,300 children were put on a waiting list.

All six magnets, except Brown, told parents they have until Friday to accept their spot.But assignment notifications for the district's neighborhood, or cluster, schools won't be mailed until April 28, when more than 12,000 children will be given their assignment for the fall.Some parents like Tamara Owens who have applied for both a magnet and neighborhood school say the separate notifications cause needless anxiety, especially given parents' angst over the new student-assignment plan.

“I want to know what all of my options are before I have to make a decision,” said Owens, who applied for a magnet school and an elementary nearest to her home, her preferred choice...

JCPS less than half way to diversity goal

Berman says district's progress so far is better than expected

This from Toni at C-J:

Halfway into the first year of Jefferson County Public Schools' new student-assignment plan, less than half of the district's elementary schools are in compliance with new diversity guidelines aimed at keeping schools integrated.

According to statistics released by the district, 48 of the district's 90 elementary schools have failed to meet the diversity goal of having between 15 percent and 50 percent of students coming from neighborhoods where the average household income is below $41,000; the average education levels are less than a high school diploma with some college; and the minority population is more than 48 percent.

While officials have said they fully expected that it would take time to bring all schools into compliance, figures show that some schools are not close to reaching that goal...

“We knew that not all of our elementary schools would be in alignment with the diversity guideline the first year because we chose” to exempt more than 3,000 children who would have been moved under the plan to stay at their current schools, said Pat Todd, director of student assignment for the district. “In addition, for the irst year of implementation, it was only the first-grade class that we really monitored for the 15-50 goal.”

But even when looking at just first-graders, 47 elementary schools are either over or under the 15-50 goal....

City Schools’ New Criteria for Diversity Raise Fears

This from the New York Times:

The Chicago public schools’ response to a recent court desegregation ruling — a plan to use students’ social and economic profiles instead of race to achieve classroom diversity — is raising fears that it will undermine the district’s slow and incremental progress on racial diversity.

Chicago schools, like the city itself, are hardly a model of racial integration. But a Chicago News Cooperative analysis of school data shows the district has made modest gains in the magnet, gifted, classical and selective-enrollment schools, where,
for nearly 30 years, race has been used as an admission criterion. Those advances may be imperiled in the wake of court rulings that have prompted Chicago Public Schools to look for factors other than race when assigning students to such schools.

Nationwide, court rulings have prompted school districts to seek creative ways to diversify classrooms without using a student’s race as a factor. In Chicago, school officials last week moved ahead with their own experiment.

Instead of race as an admissions factor, they now will use socioeconomic data from the student’s neighborhood — income, education levels, single-parent households, owner-occupied homes and the use of language other than English as the primary tongue — in placing children in selective-enrollment schools...

Jefferson County Wins a Round

This from C-J:

Heyburn's ruling

In a decision that provides certainty for parents as the school year begins, U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II has upheld a key component of the Jefferson County Public Schools student assignment plan. Following a hearing Tuesday, the judge said the portion of the plan that affects some 7,000 kindergarten students is not unconstitutional and does not assign children based on race.

The school district is back in court only two years after the U.S. Supreme Court lamentably (and most narrowly) set aside the previous assignment plan, one that used race as a primary factor in determining the school a student could attend. Interestingly enough, Judge Heyburn had (correctly in our view) upheld the earlier plan, noting that race was a factor in assignments, but that other things also came into play. His ruling was affirmed by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, only to be reversed by the high court, led by Bush appointees...

JCPS Rejects Majority of Transfer Requests

This from Toni Konz at C-J:

Lack of space is primary reason

requests turned down

More than 600 parents will receive letters within the next week notifying them that their request to transfer their child to a different elementary school has been denied.

Jefferson County Public Schools sent out the first batch of letters yesterday concerning the transfer requests.

Between May 4 and June 1, the district received 1,061 transfer requests from parents who weren't happy with their child's assigned school under a new student-assignment plan. Only 408 transfers were granted, or less than 40 percent.

Pat Todd, director of student assignment, said most transfers were denied primarily because of lack of space, especially in East End schools...

District officials acknowledge that the new student-assignment plan, which elementary schools have begun using for the 2009-10 school year, is responsible for the spike in transfer requests.

After the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the district's old plan in 2007 because it relied too heavily on individual students' race, the district created a plan that considers not only race, but also income and education level.

The plan, intended to keep schools integrated, requires schools to enroll 15 percent to 50 percent of their students from neighborhoods where the average household income is below $41,000; average education levels are less than a high school diploma with some college; and the minority population is more than 48 percent.

To help achieve that, the district regrouped its 90 elementary schools into six regional clusters -- with 11 to 15 schools in each cluster...

Sacrificing no one

This from C-J:

On the one hand, it's discouraging that "hundreds seek change in school assignments," as a recent headline put it.

On the other hand, as Jefferson County Public Schools student assignment director Pat Todd observed, "Out of 12,000 applications, we had about 850 inquiries" that referred to attending different schools. That's a relatively small number, given the great sensitivity of such issues. Few things, if any, move parents as powerfully as
the safety and success of their children, and both can be at issue in the assignment of a youngster to a particular location.

Overall, the JCPS administration has made a success of redoing student assignment, to overcome the wrongheaded objections of a U.S. Supreme Court majority. If there is any justice, the new plan will pass legal muster, and this community will be able to pursue its goal of preparing the next generation of local graduates, emphasizing academic achievement across a system that is diverse and demanding.

By approving the student assignment plan unanimously, the board placed its confidence in the school system to do all that's possible for every single student. Principals, teachers, staff and administrators absolutely must take seriously the concerns of parents, like Gina Gatti, who "understand the logic of student assignment" but fear their child "is being sacrificed."

It's up to our public educators, from Superintendent Sheldon Berman on down, to make sure that no student is sacrificed— that every youngster's needs are recognized and each one's opportunities are maximized. And Ms. Gatti also may find reassurance in this truth: Nothing predicts student success as reliably as parental concern and involvement.

JCPS officials should do everything they can to answer the questions and concerns of parents such as Ms. Gatti. They are predictable and legitimate. However, Mr. Berman's goal is the right one — quality in every school, opportunity in every classroom, commitment to every child.

There's a false sense of security in a school system that only puts students in seats next to those who come from the same kinds of homes and share the same benefits or deficits of history. A system that ghettoizes achievement — racially, socially, economically or on any other basis — would sacrifice the future of our whole community.

Angry parents seek school assignment transfers

"He'll never set foot in that school"

--Parent Scott Burba whose kindergartner was assigned

to a lower-performing school for first grade.

This from Toni Konz at C-J:

Angry parents questioning

JCPS placement of elementary students

Jefferson County's new student-assignment plan is prompting hundreds of angry parents to ask for transfers because their child is being sent to a different elementary
school than they requested.

A week after notices were sent out for roughly 12,000 incoming kindergartners and first-graders, officials with Jefferson County Public Schools are being assailed with hundreds of calls and transfer requests from parents questioning their assigned schools.

By noon Friday, more than 250 parents had called the district and 600 had filed transfer requests, and officials expect more this week.

Some parents are complaining that their children are being sent across the county when there's a school near their home...

And this from C-J:

School board approves plan on integration

Elementary parents complain

Despite vocal opposition, the Jefferson County Board of Education last night approved the final piece of its new, more diverse school-integration plan, capping a two-year effort to replace a desegregation policy that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down because it relied too heavily on race.

But the approval of middle school and high school boundaries and program changes came as angry parents descended on the meeting to complain about the district's elementary school plan, which was approved last year and is being enacted this fall.

Upset about student assignments for next year, they complained that their children were being sent to more distant or lower-performing schools when better schools were nearby. Some even vowed to leave the school system rather than send their children on long bus rides...

JCPS Tackles Student Assignment Plan

This from Toni at C-J:

Middle, high schools focus of work session

The Jefferson County Board of Education has moved a step closer to giving final approval to a new student assignment plan for middle and high schools. The plan, which includes boundary changes for dozens of schools, was discussed during a work session before last night's school board meeting. It will be further discussed at the board's April 27 meeting and be voted on May 11.

The changes, which would take effect with the 2010-11 school year, are all part of the school district's effort to adopt a new way of assigning students after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 struck down its desegregation plan, which required that schools keep black enrollment between 15 percent and 50 percent.

The district now requires schools to enroll 15 percent to 50 percent of their students from neighborhoods where the average household income is below $41,000; average education levels are less than a high school diploma with some college; and the minority population is more than 48 percent...

C-J Backs JCPS Student Assignment Plan

This from C-J:

Plan for success

Louisville's city schools desegregated voluntarily, back in the 1950s, soon after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, and earned national recognition for peaceful change. Beginning in the mid-1970s, a combined city-county system used busing to help deal with re-segregation, and, after a rough start, a strong public constituency for diversity emerged and prevailed.

More recently, Jefferson County Public Schools fought tenaciously in the courts for its attendance system. Now, after a setback dealt by the U.S. Supreme Court, the system is again adjusting its plans, in an effort to protect the benefits of diversity for as many students as possible.

The point is, this community has waged a long struggle to do what is both just and smart, and there's no reason to stop now. Most local folks don't want children from different backgrounds educated in isolation from each other, because the point is to school them for success in a diverse world...

JCPS gets look at new plan

This from C-J:

Attendance shifts won't uproot kids

Jefferson County Public Schools' proposed student assignment plan for middle and high schools won't uproot students immediately or require longer bus rides.

And it consolidates a patchwork of satellite attendance areas to allow more children in some western Louisville neighborhoods to attend the same school, district officials told the board yesterday.

But the proposal also would require revised attendance boundaries for 16 high schools and 20 middle schools by the fall of 2010, affecting roughly 6,000 students.

Ultimately, some schools would serve fewer disadvantaged students than they do now, while others would serve more.

That's necessary to comply with the school district's new policy that requires schools be racially and socioeconomically diverse, said Superintendent Sheldon Berman, who presented an initial version of the plan to the school board during a work session.

"I think this will be a national model," he said.

Board member Stephen Imhoff called the plan "100 percent better than what we've been doing" because it promises to preserve diversity while reducing crowding in some schools.

Others were more skeptical....

NAACP Objects to Ed Department Letter on Race

The Department of Education provides occasional guidance to school districts in the form of "Dear Colleague" letters.

A recent letter, the office for civil rights opined on the issue of race in student assignment under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Meredith v Jefferson County Board of Education (combined with Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District).

The NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund quickly disputed the Bush Administration's legal analysis saying the Department of Education's "interpretation of the decision is inaccurate in a number of respects."

In Parents Involved, a majority of the Supreme Court justices (the four Justices who would have upheld the student assignment plans from Seattle and Louisville at issue in the case, and Justice Kennedy, who found some aspects of those plans unacceptable but approved of their purpose) recognized that school districts have compelling interests in promoting student diversity and avoiding racial isolation in elementary and secondary school settings.

The majority agreed that, in Justice Kennedy's words, a school district can, in its "discretion and expertise", take affirmative steps to avoid racial isolation and to achieve a diverse student population, Parents Involved, 127 S.Ct. at 2797, and that school officials may "consider the racial makeup of schools and adopt general policies to encourage a diverse student body, one aspect of which is its racial composition." Parents Involved, 127 S.Ct. at 2792.

But the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights focused only the court's race-neutral language.

In the two page “Dear colleague” letter dated Aug. 28 the OCR says:

“The Department of Education strongly encourages the use of race-neutral methods for assigning students to elementary and secondary schools.”

“Genuinely race-neutral measures” such as those based on a student’s socioeconomic status would not trigger the highest level of court scrutiny, the office says.

As Mark Walsh over at the School Law Blog points out,

"The letter takes no notice of the key concurring opinion by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in the cases from Seattle and Jefferson County, Ky."

Anurima Bhargava, the director of the civil rights group’s education practice, said the letter “is very limited in its reading” of the high court decision. “It’s as if Kennedy hadn’t written,” she said.

The court ruled 5-4 in June of last year that assignment plans in the two districts that and sometimes relied on race-based assignments to achieve diversity in individual schools, violated the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

But Justice Kennedy wrote that while those districts used race in an unconstitutional manner, it would be permissible for districts to take race into account under certain circumstances, such as when choosing sites for new schools, drawing attendance zones based on neighborhood demographics, or allocating resources for special programs.

School board approves student-assignment plan

This from C-J:

Change to begin in fall of 2009

Calling it a historic moment for Jefferson County Public Schools, the district's board voted unanimously yesterday to approve an integration plan that will use race, income and education in assigning children to schools.

"This is a terrific opportunity because we are starting something new and as we move forward and work through this, I believe it is going to be better for our students," said board member Larry Hujo.

Under the new student-assignment plan, all schools -- elementary, middle and high -- must enroll at least 15 percent and no more than 50 percent of their students from neighborhoods that have income and education levels below the school district average, and higher-than-average numbers of minorities.

The plan would begin in elementary schools with the 2009-10 school year, although district officials have said they don't expect every school to immediately meet the goals. The board decided last night to keep in their current schools about 3,400 elementary students who would have had to move. Those students will not be affected by the plan until they move to middle school.

Jefferson County was forced to create a new student-assignment plan after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last June that the school district's old plan was unconstitutional. The court said the district looked only at individual students' race when assigning them to schools.

Several board members, along with Superintendent Sheldon Berman, called the creation of a new student-assignment plan a historic moment for both Jefferson County and its school system, one of the largest in the country.

"There have been a number of historic moments … in general, they have gone the other direction, in terms of being forced to integrate," Berman said. "This one is to sustain integration within the context of a very complex decision on the part of the U.S. Supreme Court." ...

Jefferson County Board to consider student-assignment plan

This from C-J:

Attendance guide has broad base

The Jefferson County Board of Education will decide tonight whether to move forward with an integration plan that would use race, income and education in assigning children to schools.

Under the proposal, all schools -- elementary, middle and high -- must enroll at least 15 percent and no more than
50 percent of their students from neighborhoods that have income and education levels below the district average and higher-than-average numbers of minorities...

...Some national desegregation experts predict the plan
will withstand legal challenges and keep schools from becoming racially or socioeconomically segregated.But Alan Foutz, senior attorney for California's Pacific Legal Foundation, which is challenging a similar plan in Berkeley,
Calif., said he believes both plans are simply a proxy for using race in making student assignments, and are unconstitutional.

And Teddy Gordon, the Louisville lawyer who forced the district to drop its previous desegregation policy, agreed, saying in a statement yesterday that the plan "will be
challengeable." ...

...Then, district officials expanded its definition of diversity to include not only race, but also education and income level. It measured the average household income, education level and minority population of elementary school enrollment areas, based on U.S. Census data.

It decided that every school must have at least 15 percent and no more than 50 percent of it students from enrollment areas where the average household income among school families was below $41,000; the average education level was less than a high-school diploma with some college; and minority student population was more than 48 percent...

Jefferson school plan revised to offer more choice

This from C-J:

The revisions, which will be presented to the school board for discussion Monday night, will reduce the number of elementary clusters, putting more schools in each cluster for parents to choose from.

It's the second time this month that officials have changed the student-assignment proposal, which is designed to keep schools diverse in the wake of last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down the district's old plan...

Jefferson school plan revised to offer more choice

This from C-J:

Parents get more elementary choices

Jefferson County Public Schools is making more changes to its proposed student-assignment plan, reducing the number of elementary school clusters, in part to give parents more choice.

The revisions, which will be presented to the school board for discussion Monday night, will reduce the number of elementary clusters, putting more schools in each cluster for parents to choose from.

It's the second time this month that officials have changed the student-assignment proposal, which is designed to keep schools diverse in the wake of last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down the district's old plan...

...Berman said the changes would still require between 1,700 and 3,400 elementary students to switch schools.

The district might grandfather in those students, allowing them to stay in their schools. But that would cost between $800,000 and $2.1 million in 2009-10.

"At this point, both the school board and I would like to grandfather all these students in, because it would mean that their lives would not have to be interrupted," Berman said. "But I am very concerned about the cost of grandfathering."

Letting students stay in their schools is extremely important to many parents, said Traci Priddy, president of the 15th District PTA...

Photo by Pam Spaulding.

Challenge to Louisville school assignments filed too soon

This from the Herald-Leader:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. --A federal judge turned away a challenge to Louisville's student assignment plan for the coming school year, saying it was brought too soon because no one has been affected by it yet.

U.S. District Judge John Heyburn said on Tuesday that without having anyone affected by the plan, there's no way to know whether it violates the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last summer barring race in assigning individual students to schools.

"We're much better off deciding this case not as a hypothetical," Heyburn said.

Heyburn's decision came after attorney Teddy Gordon challenged Jefferson County's interim assignment plan. Gordon, who brought the case that resulted in the Supreme Court decision, said the interim plan illegally uses race to draw district lines for several schools, to the detriment of about 340 students...

And this from C-J:

...Heyburn told Gordon yesterday that would be difficult to determine whether someone's rights would be violated by the temporary plan without actual plaintiffs who say the plan harmed them.
"You may well have some valid points, but I don't know," the judge said.
Heyburn told Gordon to find a plaintiff and file a lawsuit if he wants to further challenge the plan.
"If someone tomorrow is denied choice of admission under circumstances that you think are problematic, the court will address that as a new case, if that is what it would take," he said, promising to handle it "very quickly, well before the start of the school year." ...

Jefferson County Desegregation Plan

This from Marc Murphy in The Courier-Journal.

Gordon's Rant: JCPS Student Assignment Illusion is 'arrogant' and 'embarrassing'

Teddy B. Gordon, of Louisville, is the plaintiff's attorney in the Jefferson County School desegregation case, (Meredith v Jefferson County Board of Education) which was decided last summer by the U.S. Supreme Court. His Op-Ed (below) ran in this morning's Courier-Journal.

Now, if anybody has a right to be riding high about now, I suppose it's Gordon. Coming off his big win, and big payday, it is expected that Gordon should babysit implementation of the new JCPS student assignment plan. But here Gordon is attempting to personally fill in all of the blank spaces left by the Court in its opinion. It is a bit over the top; and not likely to impress his high school English teacher. But his questioning why it is that black children bare the greatest burden under such plans is appropriate.

It is one thing to imagine a system where every parent can select the school their child will attend. It is quite another to provide it.

In the real world, geography matters; where people can afford to live matters; where a free people choose to live matters; the resources and space limitations of any given school matters. Every district needs a plan that is as fair as possible to all students.

The JCPS effort to provide students with an educational experience that is more 'all-American' and less 'tribal' is admirable. Student assignment plans that attempt to reflect the natural diversity in society are right-headed. But the Court has correctly judged that the current defacto segregation of students in American schools is NOT the result of deliberate government action.

Teddy Gordon need not demogogue the issue. Claims of social engineering are valid on both sides of this murky question.

Attorney faults JCPS 'arrogance'

This latest attempt by Sheldon Berman and the Jefferson County School Board (JCPS) is extremely troubling to me and should be to every parent in this school district. That such a vital public agency that impacts all our children would willfully try to subjugate (sic) the U.S. Supreme Court and thumb their noses at our judicial system. JCPS's arrogance is not just embarrassing, but proves to our nearly 100,000 schoolchildren that their lives mean nothing to this public agency.

The questions we all (parents and guardians, lawyers, school officials, community leaders and the news media) need to be asking of Berman and every JCPS board member, principal and teacher is why.

Why just another shell game with the moving pieces being shuffled are our children, and mostly African-American children) -- all for an illusion of diversity without improved educational outcome.

Why will once again black children (or in JCPS's new classification, "minority") be bused longer, farther and more often than white (or "non-minority") children.

Why will the majority of Black children be bused to the lower performing schools? Will a high performing school like Wilder Elementary have the same percent of minority that Whitney Young does?

If, in fact there are over 3000 children waiting to get into a traditional or magnet school, why aren't more traditional and magnet schools being built in the inner city instead of three new ones in the suburbs?

And why impose a hard percentage of 15/50, and if one of the factors is race along with home location/income and parents' education, does the race card become the determining factor in turning away black children from better performing schools.

Why weren't there public forums to hear what parents and guardians want for their children before any plan was implemented. And will any upcoming public forum really change the proposed student assignment plan or are these forums and surveys just another illusion that the JCPS wants to create.

Why if JCPS has known about this since 2000, have they not come up with a better plan that improves education for every child, no matter what the color of his or her skin is.

It is these answers that will determine if this new student assignment plan passes constitutional -- and community -- mustard (sic) -- or if this JCPS plan once again infringes on the rights of minorities and punishes them for their (sic) color of their skin. These answers determine whether Berman and JCPS are truly interested in doing what is best for all our children.

JCPS insists on turning our children into social experiment (sic) that is not only out-dated, but worse failing our children.

Instead of concentrating their efforts and resources (especially in a time of reduced federal and state budgets) on improving education for every child, this gathering of old outdated school board members and administrators along with self-designated titled of so-called experts force upon a plan (sic) that never has or will improve the education of our children.

The most important question every parent and guardian should ask when their child is being bused to a school they do not like is "Why." Why is my child being bused to a school that I do not approve of?

And demand a satisfactory answer from the principal of the school and of JCPS. Your child, every child, deserves an equal educational opportunity.

When parental choice becomes the only factor in deciding where children go to school, then all of God's children will truly be judged by the content of their character and education, not by the color of their skin.

Schools' interim desegregation plan challenged

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race

is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,"

US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.

That was the zinger that encapsulated the Court's decision in Meredith v Jefferson County Board of Education. But that is not the whole case.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy did not join all of the majority opinion - only the result. That left a gap of uncertainty as to the meaning of the Court's 5-4 decision; a gap the Jefferson County Board of Education is trying to squeeze into.

Kennedy suggested in his separate opinion that the Robert's opinion, in part, "is at least open to the interpretation that the Constitution requires school districts to ignore the problem of de facto resegregation in schooling. I cannot endorse that conclusion," he wrote.

The Jefferson County Board of Education responded with a new temporary student assignment plan that looks like the old plan.

So it wasn't too hard to predict what would happen next. This from the Courier-Journal:

The Louisville lawyer who successfully challenged Jefferson County's school desegregation policy is now challenging the district's interim plan, saying it illegally uses race to assign students.

Attorney Ted Gordon filed a motion yesterday in U.S. District Court in Louisville, asking Judge John Heyburn II to review the temporary plan adopted last week for the 2008-09 school year.

Gordon said he wants Heyburn to determine whether Jefferson County Public Schools has revived "a quota system" and is "assigning kindergartners and first-graders to elementary schools based upon racial classifications."

"They are still using race as a way to assign children and they cannot do that," Gordon said in an interview yesterday. "I am shocked the school board did not ask (Heyburn) for approval before they approved this plan."

Byron Leet, an attorney who represents the county Board of Education, said yesterday that Gordon's motion has no merit.

"He is trying to reopen a case that has already been closed," Leet said...

Education Week's School Law Blog lists several resources for those thying to divine the Court's real meaning.

...[T]he NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund recently published a manual for parents, educators, and advocates on what steps are still legally available to maintain racially diverse schools. The 95-page manual, Still Looking to the Future: Voluntary K-12 School Integration, is available in PDF form online or can be ordered from the organization. "While altering the landscape of school integration, the Seattle/Louisville decision did not provide a clear set of rules and principles for school districts to follow, and created some confusion about what school districts and communities can do to promote integration in their schools," the manual states.

There are some other helpful documents out there for educators as they grapple with the Seattle/Jefferson County decision.

The National School Boards Association teamed up with the College Board last year to publish "Not Black and White," a guide to the Supreme Court's decision.

And earlier, the NSBA had released "An Educated Guess: Initial Guidance on Diversity in Public Schools After PICS v. Seattle School District."

And the Hogan & Hartson law firm, which works with many school districts on diversity issues, put out its own guidance last year. The firm issued this document shortly after the decision last summer, and this updated guidance last September. (Thanks to Maree Sneed of Hogan & Hartson for the documents.)

Finally, for those who want more to chew on, the Harvard Law Review devoted several articles to analyzing the Seattle/Jefferson County race decisions in its November issue.