CHE Article on Education Schools--Who Needs an Ed.D?

LUECHTEFELD: You neglected to name the sociologist.

SIMON: Incorrect! I OMMITTED but did not NEGLECT to provide his name because I did not feel it necessary to do so.

LUECHTFELD: That busing is almost universally regarded today as a failure is due in large part to the demographic research of U of Chicago *sociologist* James Coleman.

SIMON: BRILLIANT contribution! I applaude your naming this Sociologist!

LUECHTFELDHaving grown up in suburban St. Louis, attending a district to which black students were bused, I can tell you that busing was widely advocated at the time in circles that extended *well* beyond sociologists, right up to the entirety of the US Supreme Court. Perhaps one of the resident law students can provides some context vis-a-vis Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg or any one of its lower court antecedents).

SIMON: You are being tangential. YOU asked me for an example and I provided you with one. NOW you are pointing out that busing "extended *well* beyond sociologists" and was advocated "right up to the entirety of the US Supreme Court" in an attempt to demonstrate that the onus does not only fall on the sociologist in question. The fact that the supreme court and the public initially supported and implemented his theory is irrelevant to this discussion. In fact Coleman admitted years later that he made a major mistake in promulgating and advocating this theory. I provided you with a specific example as YOU requested and this is what is relevant in this context.

LUECHTFELD: So enough of the broadside against sociologists.

SIMON: What are you talking about? You have not stated anything that disproves my perspective or example.

I have attached a synopsis of the busing issue if anyone is interested in understanding how this sociologist's theory failed to bring about integration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desegregation_busing

 

As an addendum to the above post, Dr. James Coleman who promulgated the busing theory with the intent of providing equivalence in the educational experience of minorities with mainstream caucasian students later acknowledged "Only under certain circumstances does integration improve black classroom performance-when the numbers of blacks introduced is not sufficiently large to alter the middle class ethos of the classroom. When these limits are exceeded, the ghetto ethos prevails".

I was only able to obtain this extrapolated quote but will attempt to find the exact source.