busing, decline of detroit and it's schools

[Goose]

i searched but didn't find a specific thread addressing this issue, sorry if it's a repeat

i was born and raised in detroit, went to clark elementary until the day that the great social, economic, and racial equalizer of busing came into play, they wanted to ship me by bus 30 minutes away to a school, when i lived 1/2 a block on chatsworth from clark, and i was only in the first grade....

so i then went to st. clare parochial school until my parents were able to flee the city in 1976, selling their home on chatsworth for less than they purchased it only 7 years prior.... moving to the promised land of grosse pointe....

busing in itself is what destroyed the city, probably, and with understandable opposition, without it today you would probably have enclaves of viable school "district" areas in detroit, be them predominantly white, hispanic, or black, and its not argueable that most of the resulting poor and underfunded school districts would be predominantly black, but at minimal there would be within the city, areas where people with minimal means, could move and benefit from a viable schools

now, as the result of busing, the entire basic detroit school system is less desireable......

busing killed detroit......

[wolverine]

declining, but it should be decline

[Ray1936]

Couldn't agree more. Busing killed Detroit. It was the stupidest idea ever conceived, not just in Detroit but also anywhere else.

[gazhekwe]

Agreed, it was a dumb idea. We lived right near one of the best elementary schools, Edison, moved there on purpose, and when busing started, we didn't know where they would send the kid, so we opted out.

[sam]

There is a long list of things that killed Detroit, but up until now I did not include busing, so I will have to add it. Of course if you think busing killed Detroit you should check out the busing history in South Boston during the early 70's.

[Jimaz]

There is a long list of things that killed Detroit, but up until now I did not include busing, so I will have to add it. Of course if you think busing killed Detroit you should check out the busing history in South Boston during the early 70's.

Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, by J. Anthony Lukas

[Bham1982]

There is a long list of things that killed Detroit, but up until now I did not include busing, so I will have to add it. Of course if you think busing killed Detroit you should check out the busing history in South Boston during the early 70's.

To me, South Boston and the accompanying busing-related race tumult pretty much mirrors the Detroit experience.

As in Detroit, Boston has basically no white ethnics in its public schools, and very few middle class families of any race. Boston, despite the thriving downtown, strong economy, and gentrified neighborhoods, has a poor-performing, poverty-stricken public school system that is over 90% black and hispanic.

This shows that, no matter how prosperous the urban core, no matter how many yuppie neighborhoods are created/subsidized, urban public education remains an abject failure, and busing plays an important role in this failure.

[DetroitPlanner]

Everybody hates Chris was a show about a kid being bussed to an all white school in another neighborhood. Did that kill new york?

[English]

Everybody hates Chris was a show about a kid being bussed to an all white school in another neighborhood. Did that kill new york?

Exactly. I call b.s. -- there are plenty of places where busing was implemented far more than it was in metro Detroit that are thriving today. Why are Detroiters [[and former Detroiters) so myopic?

[Goose]

Exactly. I call b.s. -- there are plenty of places where busing was implemented far more than it was in metro Detroit that are thriving today. Why are Detroiters [[and former Detroiters) so myopic?

what a great example, liberal hollywood version of busing, along with the humor of chris rock....... wish it was that easy.......

[gazhekwe]

Let's just put it this way. The floodgates really opened as neighborhoods integrated in the 60s. Those incipient rumors about the schools going down started and provided additional impetus. The uprising of 1967 caused the exodus to extend to employers, and then busing hit. So it wasn't just busing, but it sure didn't help.

[FoxyScholar10]

Flee Detroit... really? Sigh....

My parents "fled"[[?) Inkster and moved to the northwest side in 1978-79. I got bussed to Gompers Elementary [[although I lived closer to Edison). My first encounters with poor/low-income Whites [[Yikes!) Those classmates didn't know what to do with a pre-buppy smart nerdy Black girl. Oh yeah: Graduated from Renaissance High and got a full academic scholarship to college.

What's killing Detroit? Poor decisions by [[some) of everybody with any kind of association with the city. Bussing may not have been the best decision, but it certainly wasn't the worst.

[Goose]

Flee Detroit... really? Sigh....

really? what do you think happened in the 70's??? my god, wake up.........

[FoxyScholar10]

really? what do you think happened in the 70's??? my god, wake up.........

Sigh.... I do not dispute the activities. I side-eye the use of the word "flee", although it appears to be an accurate description. It's the loaded sentiment of the term "flee" that is irksome, as it is still used today. Loaded with a victim mentality. Is "escape" a better word?

I suppose the more productive way to look at it is this: one should be grateful one had/has the resources to "flee". Just go and don't let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya. Alrighty then.

Back on topic: bussing [[or busing--the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary uses either word): good or bad for Detroit?

[Hermod]

I suppose the more productive way to look at it is this: one should be grateful one had/has the resources to "flee". Just go and don't let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya. Alrighty then.

Go, but send money back.

[mwilbert]

As has been pointed out many, many times in various threads, Detroit started declining in the 50's. That was long before there was any busing, so something more than that was going on. What is true is that if you still had neighborhood schools, then some neighborhoods might have decent schools, instead of everyone having poor ones, and some neighborhoods might have held up better than they actually have.

What is also true is that busing didn't actually accomplish its purpose, since the schools didn't really end up desegregated, nor did they improve. If Bradley v. Milliken had been decided differently, there might have been some point to it, but once the remedy was confined to the city limits, it was pretty clear busing wasn't going to accomplish anything. Nor did busing cause the riots, or the election of CAY. So I wouldn't defend it, but I don't really think you can hang too much on it either.

[reddog289]

While I do remember the whole BUSING DEAL, And the bitching my parents and others did back then . I was not affected.I personally would not like the fact that my kids would have to attend school out of their neighborhood for no other reason then an experiment.That said.
I was reminded of the busing deal when my school district shut down a few schools.I did think about the time when busing was around, Yet this time it wasn't the happy blend it all together time, It was do to money problrms and lack of kids.
My Father left Detroit in '55, My Step Dad '57, as for busing killing Detroit, Well the nails were in the coffin when busing came around.There is no answer to why Detroit became the place it has and I know it will never be the same, busing, racism, et all and what not.

[Ray1936]

There is no answer to why Detroit became the place it has and I know it will never be the same, busing, racism, et all and what not.

Well, there is an answer, but no one wants to talk about it.

[EastsideAl]

Busing, in fact, had almost no effect in Detroit. By the time it was implemented the city's school system was already about 80% black, and demographic effects [[wealthier families moving out at a consistent rate + a faster rate of decrease in white family sizes) meant that that percentage would have increased with or without busing. That's why it was abandoned here after a relatively short while. There was really little or no 'desegregating' to be done.

The fact is that the Detroit area segregated by municipality. This trend was already very apparent when Judge Roth made his original ruling back in the early '70s, by which time the city's schools were way over half black [[city schools had been blacker than the population for quite a while, in part due to the high number of kids who traditionally went to Catholic schools in Detroit). This is why he ordered busing across district lines, in order to desegregate schools across the entire metro area. That plan was struck down by higher courts after a protracted fight in the Bradley v. Milliken decision and was never implemented. The plan that was eventually implemented was for the city schools only, and was really quite limited in scope.

[jiminnm]

Busing, in fact, had almost no effect in Detroit. By the time it was implemented the city's school system was already about 80% black, and demographic effects [[wealthier families moving out at a consistent rate + a faster rate of decrease in white family sizes) meant that that percentage would have increased with or without busing. That's why it was abandoned here after a relatively short while. There was really little or no 'desegregating' to be done.

This is not so.

I was in elementary school [[A.L. Holmes) in the mid-late 1950s. Students began getting bused into that school about 1957-1958.

[Goose]

i only reason from my experience, i remember our street on Chatsworth, sure it was homongenous white, everything the left hates, but it was awesome, i remember being safe, i remember being happy, riding around the blocks with no fear, playing at clark playgrounds.....

many of the residents of that street my parents are still in contact with, i attended UofM with one of the girls on the street I grew up with.... ALL left right around 1975-1976.... most to Grosse Pointe.....

i had a half a block safe walk to clark, why would anyone, black, white, green, EVER accept being bused 1/2 hour away from your family when the you were 1/2 a block away from the same school.....?????

im not saying that it would be 100% different today without it, but for sure, there would be many "pockets" of school districts in Detroit that would have remained desireable

they chose to divide and bus to the lowest common denominator and all suffered......

[DetroitTeacher]

This post [[see insert) sounds pretty racist to me [[and I'm a white girl with a "whole lotta soul" in her...to quote my students).

We left Detroit in 81 and moved to Livonia [[talk about a culture shock). I know my parents were against busing not for racial reasons but because we had but one vehicle and my dad was on 24 hour shifts at the time. Mom had to have us close in case of illness at school or things of that nature. We had a GREAT school within walking distance, 1 block [[Ann Arbor Trail...elementary, at the time). They were going to bus us to the deep East side and mom had heard the bus service was unreliable, at best. My parents took no chance that I might not make it home safely and in a reasonable time frame [[we would have been on the bus an hour each way...with all the stops). Needless to say, I missed walking home each day from AA Trail. When we moved, we moved within walking distance of ALL of the schools my sister and I would attend. Moving made it quite difficult for my dad, who still had city residency requirements for his job.

i only reason from my experience, i remember our street on Chatsworth, sure it was homongenous white, everything the left hates, but it was awesome, i remember being safe, i remember being happy, riding around the blocks with no fear, playing at clark playgrounds.....

many of the residents of that street my parents are still in contact with, i attended UofM with one of the girls on the street I grew up with.... ALL left right around 1975-1976.... most to Grosse Pointe.....

i had a half a block safe walk to clark, why would anyone, black, white, green, EVER accept being bused 1/2 hour away from your family when the you were 1/2 a block away from the same school.....?????

im not saying that it would be 100% different today without it, but for sure, there would be many "pockets" of school districts in Detroit that would have remained desireable

they chose to divide and bus to the lowest common denominator and all suffered......

[Buy American]

This post [[see insert) sounds pretty racist to me [[and I'm a white girl with a "whole lotta soul" in her...to quote my students).

We left Detroit in 81 and moved to Livonia [[talk about a culture shock). I know my parents were against busing not for racial reasons but because we had but one vehicle and my dad was on 24 hour shifts at the time. Mom had to have us close in case of illness at school or things of that nature. We had a GREAT school within walking distance, 1 block [[Ann Arbor Trail...elementary, at the time). They were going to bus us to the deep East side and mom had heard the bus service was unreliable, at best. My parents took no chance that I might not make it home safely and in a reasonable time frame [[we would have been on the bus an hour each way...with all the stops). Needless to say, I missed walking home each day from AA Trail. When we moved, we moved within walking distance of ALL of the schools my sister and I would attend. Moving made it quite difficult for my dad, who still had city residency requirements for his job.

I would really love to respond to this post truthfully but I know I'd get slammed, so I won't.

[DetroitTeacher]

Please, respond truthfully. If it's in response to dad's residency, he still remained in the city most of the week...which is why it was hard. My parents just did what they thought was best for we kids, at the time.

I would really love to respond to this post truthfully but I know I'd get slammed, so I won't.

[Novine]

"Last I checked, the effects of busing are evident today. None of the neighborhoods destroyed [[in part) by busing have reverted to their pre-busing demographic."

Did you read this earlier post? The only busing that happened in Detroit happened within the city itself and didn't affect many neighborhoods or last long. But according to you, it helped destroy neighborhoods. A bit of a stretch of cause and effect there.

"This is the plan that was implemented in 1976. However, as I said above, by the time a plan was finally in place the city's schools were already about 80% black, which made any meaningful desegregation a practical impossibility. In the end, the busing plan only affected about 10% of students, and was phased out after just a few years."