Document Type
Article
Department
​Educational Studies
Publication Date
2004
Abstract
This review essay critically evaluates Susan Eaton's The Other Boston Busing Story, an interview-based study of African American alumni from Boston's METCO voluntary city-to-suburb school desegregation program in the 1970s through the 1990s. The reviewers praise Eaton's richly-textured representations of METCO alumni experiences, but they question whether the evidence supports her major policy claim that nearly all alumni would repeat the program if given the opportunity. Based on the reviewers' parallel study of Hartford's Project Concern alumni, the essay calls attention to "forced choices" faced by many African Americans in these city-suburban programs, and discusses the broader implications for contemporary policy debate on school desegregation and the vouchers movement.
Comments
Submitted as part of the Cities, Suburbs and Schools project for the On The Line web-book by Jack Dougherty and colleagues.