Abstract: Using the experience of one community that has undergone a district line
altering transformation as a case study, this article argues that
endorsement from the state is an essential element for success in
efforts to mitigate the educational inequities caused by district
boundaries and then offers specific steps states can take to support
such changes even without altering district boundaries. Part I will
introduce the ways in which school district lines can serve as barriers
to educational opportunities, and Part II will summarize several current
educational reform proposals and trends that either have the intent or
effect of weakening the power of district lines. Part III examines the
rationale for the largely successful suburban resistance to
district-weakening proposals, filling out the context in which
conversations on these topics take place. The case study of the merger
of urban and suburban school districts in Memphis and Shelby County,
Tennessee will be introduced in Part IV. Utilizing the experience in
Memphis and Shelby County, Part V will identify lessons learned from
Memphis, focusing on the role of the state in assisting or obstructing
elimination of interdistrict disparities, and Part VI will offer
practical and politically viable suggestions that states can take to
address these issues. Although the legal context was quite different,
the practical landscape facing the merger process in Memphis was not
unlike what Judge Roth found in Detroit four decades earlier. At issue
remained questions about whether education should be considered a common
undertaking for the entire metropolitan area it affects, or whether
local control should be limited conceptually by existing district lines.
If anything, the fences between urban and suburban districts have grown
even stronger since the Supreme Court embraced them in Milliken. The
lessons from this contemporary attempt to break down school district
boundaries demonstrate just how strong those fences have become.
This article appeared in The Urban Lawyer. The full article is available here.
