Strength in Diversity Act (HR 2639)

Strength in Diversity Act

The bill establishes a grant program to help local school districts and communities develop and implement plans to reduce or eliminate racial or socioeconomic school segregation and improve the diversity of student populations at public schools. Under the six-year program, one-year planning grants and three-year implementation grants would be issued on a competitive basis.

Democrats say the bill represents a first step towards reasserting federal efforts to integrate public schools and reverse the trend of increasing racial and economic segregation that has occurred over the past couple decades.

Republicans agree all children should be given access to the same educational opportunities, but say the measure would produce a top-down, one-size-fits-all solution rather than giving school districts the flexibility to find their own local, grassroots solutions. 

BACKGROUND

The Supreme Court in its landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision unanimously struck down legal school segregation by states. In the wake of that decision, public schools achieved greater integration and Black children achieved greater levels of scholastic success. According to a 2014 analysis by UCLA's Civil Rights Project, however, public school integration in the United States reached its peak in 1988, and the Government Accountability Office in 2016 reported that public schools were now more segregated by race and income than at any time since the late 1960s.

Research has shown that Black children who attend integrated schools have better achievement, and that the achievement of white children in those schools does not decline. Children who attend integrated schools are also more likely to live in integrated communities as adults. Certain programs under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (which was last authorized by the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act; PL 114-95) devote federal funding and resources to help struggling and failing schools — but there are no major programs that specifically address race, diversity and school integration. According to the UCLA analysis, the focus of federal public school policy has shifted to accountability, and the last major congressional action supporting school desegregation was enacted in 1972.

The Education Department under the Obama administration in late 2016 created a $12 million grant program to help local school districts and communities develop plans to increase socioeconomic diversity in public schools. But the Trump administration in early 2017 terminated that "Opening Doors, Expanding Opportunities" program.

The committee in its report notes that there are about 200 school districts that remain under court desegregation orders. In addition, more than 100 school districts have voluntary integration plans to promote diversity, according to researchers at Penn State University, and those school districts are experiencing multiple challenges defining diversity and developing diversity and desegregation initiatives. The committee says that this bill would provide much needed support to those school districts.