Two Approaches to Equal Educational Opportunity: Integration and School Funding

In a June 30 New York Times article, entitled, "Money, Not Race, Fuels New Push to Buoy Schools" the longstanding conversation about racial integration and school finance litigation as dual approaches to increasing educational equity continues.

Because "fiscal-equity litigation and integration need not be either-or propositions," the real question is why this 'debate' exists in the first place. Advocates of both integration and school finance are working to increase educational equity and, as the Supreme Court opinion highlights, there are powerful forces working to undermine this goal. While it is true that the legal "tools to address racial inequities" are dwindling, education lawyers from both camps must nevertheless work in tandem towards their shared goal. American schools are segregated and American schools are underfunded. They need all the help they can get.