Wayward Busing

At the heart of the school busing controversy is a basic question: Does integration provide better education? Until recently the answer--officially, atleast--was yes. There have always been skeptics, however, and last week a gloomy new study raised serious doubts. Harvard Sociologist David J. Armor, reporting on surveys of busing results in six Northern cities, said that four of the five major premises of current school integration policy "failed to be supported by the data." Among Armor's chief conclusions:

IMPROVED EDUCATION: "None of the studies have been able to demonstrate, conclusively, that integration has had an effect on academic achievement as measured by standardized tests."

SELFESTEEM: "Integration does not seem to affect the self-esteem measures [of minority children] in any clearly consistent or significant way."

RACIAL RELATIONS: "The data suggest that integration heightens racial identity and consciousness, enhances ideologies that promote racial segregation and reduces opportunities for actual contact between the races." In Riverside, Calif., after one year of integration, both black and white children tended to choose their own race to a greater extent than before when asked whom they would most like to have as a friend.

EDUCATIONAL ASPIRATION: "Bused students do not improve their aspirations for college."

As for the fifth premise, however, Armor found "strong evidence that middle-class suburban prep schools have an important 'channeling' effect not found in black schools . . . that black students attending such schools may have doors opened for them that are closed to students attending predominantly black schools."

Armor was quick to acknowledge the limitations of his work. "It is difficult," he wrote, "to make comparisons and generalizations when data are derived from different studies." Armor drew on his own study of Metco, a voluntary busing program involving Boston and 28 suburbs, plus independent reports over varying time spans on integration programs in Ann Arbor, Riverside, Hartford, New Haven, and White Plains, N.Y. Armor conceded that his own Metco study might have been based on groups of students who "are not truly representative of the full population of bused students and their matched siblings." Metco Chief Robert Hayden, for one, declared that Armor had ignored elementary school youngsters, the majority in Metco, in favor of secondary schoolchildren who in many cases had already developed hostile reactions to white prejudice.

Surfacing in a week that saw the

Senate finally pass the $18.5 billion higher-education bill--including an amendment to postpone any court-ordered busing for racial "balance" until Jan. 1, 1974, or until appeals have been exhausted--the Armor report was bound to stir controversy. At the very least, it strengthened antibusing forces in the House, where prospects for the bill are cloudy. It was Armor himself, however, who pointed out that "just because the current policy model is inaccurate, this does not mean that there are no other justifications for integration . . . If blacks and whites are ever to live in an integrated culture, they must begin learning and accepting their differences, and this cannot happen without contact." A certain amount of racial friction, Armor suggested, might well be a worthwhile price for progress toward an integrated society.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.