John King, Jr. doesn’t have much time to carry out his goals as the country’s education secretary. Having been tasked earlier this yearwith rounding off Arne Duncan’s term, King’s core duties, one could argue, should involve little more than ensuring existing programs run smoothly, keeping prevailing policies in place, and preventing some sort of catastrophe. With less than four months left on the job, that’s all one can really do.
Yet King is endeavoring to help President Obama accomplish the unthinkable: He wants to integrate schools.
Although Brown v. Board of Education decided more than six decades ago that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, children today are more racially and socioeconomically isolated than they have been in decades. Critics often attribute that regression in part to the failure of policymakers to take action—policymakers like Duncan, who in a high-profile episode of This American Life last August acknowledged, “We haven’t done enough.” King wants to change that: “We must find ways to make our schools better reflections of the diverse society we have become.”
[For more of this story, written by Alia Wong, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/edu...-integration/499505/]
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