Critical Thinking-Social Issue (Essay Sample)

Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Critical Thinking-Social Issue Introduction The Busing policy in the United States was introduced by a court order in April 20, 1971 as a means to ensure the desegregation of the white and black races in schools. During this era, there was a vehement clamor on equal rights across all races that were spurred by civil rights movements who compelled for the legislation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by Congress. Court orders including the bussing policy at the time were meant to solve the desegregation by changing the social patterns as a merger from housing to redrawing school district boundaries to merge white population with the black population (Jasper 634). The busing policy obligated schools to transport students of both races in the same busses converse from the norm. Schools that were not willing to comply with the desegregation laws and orders had their school funds withheld. The policy was made to see to it that there was racial balance in schools; however, it was an unpopular one that gathered opposition even from the then president Nixon. Nixon was quoted as saying “ I oppose any action by the Office of Education that goes beyond the mandate of the Congress; a case in point is bussing of students to achieve racial balance in schools. The law clearly states that desegregation shall not mean assignment to the students to public schools in order to overcome racial balance (Jasper 635).” How Bussing was proposed as a Solution to the Problem of Educational Segregation The situation that prompted the proposal and court order of bussing policy was to act as a remedy to the poor state of education in black segregated schools. The infrastructure and quality of education in black school was way below white schools. The busing policy was part of a wider plot of integrating whites and blacks to raise the educational levels of the majority poor black community. A report by Coleman argued that through this integration, students from the middle and high socio-economic class who were mostly whites would set the pace for high achievements. Persons who were opposed to the bussing policy suggested that the solution lay in increasing the amounts of funds allocated to black community public schools. However, this suggestion too did not gather support since it was argued that it exacerbated the problem. There was some degree of correspondence that socio-economic integration was of value to the students in their educational achievements. The Court cases of Brown vs. the Board of Education that invoked the civil rights movements were the cradle for the clamor for equal rights in education. The led to the renowned court ruling of 1954 that ordered the ‘equal but separate schools’ as unconstitutional paving the way for other consequent laws such as the bussing policy that were aimed towards a desegregated community (David 90). Professor Pettigrew, a social psychologist from Harvard was a staunch exponent of racial and ethnic integration in schools expounding that this experience allowed the students to breed better understanding of one another. His research stated that black students performed better when they were in a mixed black-white classroom in the ration of 20 to 40 percentage of the class. However, this research faced great criticism and rebuttal by David Armor another professor at Harvard who argued that integration did not increase student’s academic achievements and only acted towards enhancing racial identity and consciousness (Jasper 637). Reasoning behind Bussing The bussing policy was meant to curtail the effects of the ‘vicious circle’ of poverty as related to race. The black community was facing discrimination in most social, political, and economic realms that was plunging them in to deeper poverty, which ultimately led to their discrimination. This puts the black community at low social class making them feel like second-class citizens. It was argued that to erode this despicable situation, the problem of discrimination needed to be stemmed early in children in within schools. By allowing desegregation, black community education quality would improve thus enabling them to access quality job market with higher pay (David 93). This would break the aforementioned vicious circle by upgrading their social-economic status. This would also lower the prejudicial mindset in within the black community thus abating the social strife that festers hostility between whites and blacks. According to contact theory as put up by Gordon Allport that was the basis for the establishment of the 1967 recommendation of Racial Isolation in Public schools by civil rights commission, the mingling of black and white students imparts in them sounder beliefs and attitudes towards one another invoking the feeling of equal status in the society. Forced bussing was intended to ensure contact between the minority and majority races and increase their engagement in the activities of the mainstream American society when they grow up as adults. A resolution was also passed that allowed no more than 50% black in a single school. Negative Effects of Bussing David Armor professor of Harvard school articulated the negative effects of forced bussing to the students in his rebuttal of Coleman’s report. He compared results of students from majority white and black schools with desegregated ones and his research concluded that desegregation in schools did not bring about significant academic changes to a black or white student compared to their earlier achievements. Actually, he presumed that black student results were dropping owing to stiffer competition, which depressed their aspirations lower than those in majority black schools were. He also reasoned that desegregation heightened racial identity and consciousness in black students enunciating the aspect of racial segregation. Armors Riverside study indicated;” Children asked to choose a face that would most like for a friend, children from both races chose their own on a larger extent after a year of integration (David 99).” Not welcomed by both Whites and Blacks Gallup Index survey shows that 65% and 75% of blacks and whites respectively were proponents of racial desegregation. However, Luois Harris polls shows that the contrary to belief and expectations, only 38% of blacks and 15% whites are in support of forced bussing, as they perceive it as an incommensurate burden to the minorities inscribed in the law that the minority should be bussed in a proportion inverse to that of the majority (Sears et al. 377). According to the blacks, the policy also deems to confirm the fact that status minority schools in their inferiority in quality to majority schools hence black students left in these schools in the name of racial balanced will have been discriminated against. It was also suggested that the sole chief concern by the government was the eradication of dual school system that they deemed costly. The term ‘white flight’ was also coined during the time to depict the attitude of the whites towards forced bussing with whites abandoning involuntarily segregated schools resulting in racial desegregation (Green & Cowden 480). According to the population, forced bussing circumvented on the liberty of choice in a self-governing society and only promoted coerced desegregation. Parents wanted the liberty to take their children to neighborhood schools of their choice and convenience. There was also a concern on the disruption of social lives and relationships in children. Political and social conservatism was also a sentimentally driving the resistance towards forced bussing. Whites presumed that the increased costs of transporting students to farer schools, maintenance of the buses and salaries for the increased drivers would ultimately cause an increase in taxation. According to Antony Downs and Adam Smith, both whites and black view forced bussing as a political rhetoric of self-interest that would see them garner the black votes in elections. Political orientations are viewed on a basis of comparative utilitarian costs or the gains of the various useable attitude positions. Mahan...