[House Report 116-496]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
116th Congress } { Report
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
2d Session } { 116-496
======================================================================
STRENGTH IN DIVERSITY ACT OF 2019
_______
September 8, 2020.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on
the State of the Union and ordered to be printed
_______
Mr. Scott of Virginia, from the Committee on Education and Labor,
submitted the following
R E P O R T
together with
MINORITY VIEWS
[To accompany H.R. 2639]
[Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]
The Committee on Education and Labor, to whom was referred
the bill (H.R. 2639) to establish the Strength in Diversity
Program, and for other purposes, having considered the same,
reports favorably thereon with an amendment and recommends that
the bill as amended do pass.
CONTENTS
Page
Purpose and Summary.............................................. 5
Committee Action................................................. 6
Committee Views.................................................. 10
Section-by-Section Analysis...................................... 23
Explanation of Amendments........................................ 24
Application of Law to the Legislative Branch..................... 24
Unfunded Mandate Statement....................................... 24
Earmark Statement................................................ 24
Roll Call Votes.................................................. 25
Statement of Performance Goals and Objectives.................... 27
Duplication of Federal Programs.................................. 27
Hearings......................................................... 27
Statement of Oversight Findings and Recommendations of the
Committee...................................................... 27
New Budget Authority and CBO Cost Estimate....................... 27
Committee Cost Estimate.......................................... 28
Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill, as Reported............ 29
Minority Views................................................... 30
The amendment is as follows:
Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the
following:
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Strength in Diversity Act of 2019''.
SEC. 2. PURPOSE.
The purpose of this Act is to support the development,
implementation, and evaluation of comprehensive strategies to address
the effects of racial isolation or concentrated poverty by increasing
diversity, including racial diversity and socioeconomic diversity, in
covered schools.
SEC. 3. RESERVATION FOR NATIONAL ACTIVITIES.
The Secretary may reserve not more than 5 percent of the amounts made
available under section 10 for a fiscal year to carry out activities of
national significance relating to this Act, which may include--
(1) research, development, data collection, monitoring,
technical assistance, evaluation, or dissemination activities;
and
(2) the development and maintenance of best practices for
recipients of grants under section 4 and other experts in the
field of school diversity.
SEC. 4. GRANT PROGRAM AUTHORIZED.
(a) Authorization.--
(1) In general.--From the amounts made available under
section 10 and not reserved under section 3 for a fiscal year,
the Secretary shall award grants in accordance with subsection
(b) to eligible entities to develop or implement plans to
improve diversity and reduce or eliminate racial or
socioeconomic isolation in covered schools.
(2) Types of grants.--The Secretary may, in any fiscal year,
award--
(A) planning grants to carry out the activities
described in section 6(a);
(B) implementation grants to carry out the activities
described in section 6(b); or
(C) both such planning grants and implementation
grants.
(b) Award Basis.--
(1) Criteria for evaluating applications.--The Secretary
shall award grants under this section on a competitive basis,
based on--
(A) the quality of the application submitted by an
eligible entity under section 5; and
(B) the likelihood, as determined by the Secretary,
that the eligible entity will use the grant to improve
student outcomes or outcomes on other performance
measures described in section 7.
(2) Priority.--In awarding grants under this section, the
Secretary shall give priority to the following eligible
entities:
(A) First, to an eligible entity that proposes, in an
application submitted under section 5, to use the grant
to support a program that addresses racial isolation.
(B) Second, to an eligible entity that proposes, in
an application submitted under section 5, to use the
grant to support a program that extends beyond one
local educational agency, such as an inter-district or
regional program.
(c) Duration of Grants.--
(1) Planning grant.--A planning grant awarded under this
section shall be for a period of not more than 1 year.
(2) Implementation grant.--An implementation grant awarded
under this section shall be for a period of not more than 3
years, except that the Secretary may extend an implementation
grant for an additional 2-year period if the eligible entity
receiving the grant demonstrates to the Secretary that the
eligible entity is making significant progress, as determined
by the Secretary, on the program performance measures described
in section 7.
SEC. 5. APPLICATIONS.
In order to receive a grant under section 4, an eligible entity shall
submit an application to the Secretary at such time and in such manner
as the Secretary may require. Such application shall include--
(1) a description of the program for which the eligible
entity is seeking a grant, including--
(A) how the eligible entity proposes to use the grant
to improve the academic and life outcomes of students
in racial or socioeconomic isolation in covered schools
by supporting interventions that increase diversity in
such covered schools;
(B) in the case of an implementation grant, the
implementation grant plan described in section 6(b)(1);
and
(C) evidence, or if such evidence is not available, a
rationale based on current research, regarding how the
program will increase diversity;
(2) in the case of an eligible entity proposing to use any of
the grant to benefit covered schools that are racially
isolated, a description of how the eligible entity will
identify and define racial isolation;
(3) in the case of an eligible entity proposing to use any
portion of the grant to benefit high-poverty covered schools, a
description of how the eligible entity will identify and define
income level and socioeconomic status;
(4) a description of the plan of the eligible entity for
continuing the program after the grant period ends;
(5) a description of how the eligible entity will assess,
monitor, and evaluate the impact of the activities funded under
the grant on student achievement and student enrollment
diversity;
(6) an assurance that the eligible entity has conducted, or
will conduct, robust parent and community engagement, while
planning for and implementing the program, such as through--
(A) consultation with appropriate officials from
Indian Tribes or Tribal organizations approved by the
Tribes located in the area served by the eligible
entity;
(B) consultation with other community entities,
including local housing or transportation authorities;
(C) public hearings or other open forums to inform
the development of any formal strategy to increase
diversity; and
(D) outreach to parents and students, in a language
that parents and students can understand, and
consultation with students and families in the targeted
district or region that is designed to ensure
participation in the planning and development of any
formal strategy to increase diversity;
(7) an estimate of the number of students that the eligible
entity plans to serve under the program and the number of
students to be served through additional expansion of the
program after the grant period ends;
(8) an assurance that the eligible entity will--
(A) cooperate with the Secretary in evaluating the
program, including any evaluation that might require
data and information from multiple recipients of grants
under section 4; and
(B) engage in the best practices developed under
section 3(2);
(9) an assurance that, to the extent possible, the eligible
entity has considered the potential implications of the grant
activities on the demographics and student enrollment of nearby
covered schools not included in the activities of the grant;
and
(10) in the case of an eligible entity applying for an
implementation grant, a description of how the eligible entity
will--
(A) implement, replicate, or expand a strategy based
on a strong or moderate level of evidence (as described
in subclause (I) or (II) of section 8101(21)(A)(i) of
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20
U.S.C. 7801(21)(A)(i))); or
(B) test a promising strategy to increase diversity
in covered schools.
SEC. 6. USES OF FUNDS.
(a) Planning Grants.--Each eligible entity that receives a planning
grant under section 4 shall use the grant to support students in
covered schools through the following activities:
(1) Completing a comprehensive assessment of, with respect to
the geographic area served by such eligible entity--
(A) the educational outcomes and racial and
socioeconomic stratification of children attending
covered schools; and
(B) an analysis of the location and capacity of
program and school facilities and the adequacy of local
or regional transportation infrastructure.
(2) Developing and implementing a robust family, student, and
community engagement plan, including, where feasible, public
hearings or other open forums that would precede and inform the
development of a formal strategy to improve diversity in
covered schools.
(3) Developing options, including timelines and cost
estimates, for improving diversity in covered schools, such as
weighted lotteries, revised feeder patterns, school boundary
redesign, or regional coordination.
(4) Developing an implementation plan based on community
preferences among the options developed under paragraph (3).
(5) Building the capacity to collect and analyze data that
provide information for transparency, continuous improvement,
and evaluation.
(6) Developing an implementation plan to comply with a court-
ordered school desegregation plan.
(7) Engaging in best practices developed under section 3(2).
(b) Implementation Grants.--
(1) Implementation grant plan.--Each eligible entity that
receives an implementation grant under section 4 shall
implement a high-quality plan to support students in covered
schools that includes--
(A) a comprehensive set of strategies designed to
improve academic outcomes for all students,
particularly students of color and low-income students,
by increasing diversity in covered schools;
(B) evidence of strong family and community support
for such strategies, including evidence that the
eligible entity has engaged in meaningful family and
community outreach activities;
(C) goals to increase diversity in covered schools
over the course of the grant period;
(D) collection and analysis of data to provide
transparency and support continuous improvement
throughout the grant period; and
(E) a rigorous method of evaluation of the
effectiveness of the program.
(2) Implementation grant activities.--Each eligible entity
that receives an implementation grant under section 4 may use
the grant to carry out one or more of the following activities:
(A) Recruiting, hiring, or training additional
teachers, administrators, and other instructional and
support staff in new, expanded, or restructured covered
schools, or other professional development activities
for staff and administrators.
(B) Investing in specialized academic programs or
facilities designed to encourage inter-district school
attendance patterns.
(C) Developing or initiating a transportation plan
for bringing students to and from covered schools, if
such transportation is sustainable beyond the grant
period and does not represent a significant portion of
the grant received by an eligible entity under section
4.
(D) Developing innovative and equitable school
assignment plans.
(E) Carrying out innovative activities designed to
increase racial and socioeconomic school diversity and
engagement between children from different racial,
economic, and cultural backgrounds.
SEC. 7. PERFORMANCE MEASURES.
The Secretary shall establish performance measures for the programs
and activities carried out through a grant under section 4. These
measures, at a minimum, shall track the progress of each eligible
entity in--
(1) improving academic and other developmental or
noncognitive outcomes for each subgroup described in section
1111(b)(2)(B)(xi) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6311(b)(2)(B)(xi)) that is served by the
eligible entity on measures, including, as applicable, by--
(A) increasing school readiness;
(B) increasing student achievement and decreasing
achievement gaps;
(C) increasing high school graduation rates;
(D) increasing readiness for postsecondary education
and careers;
(E) reducing school discipline rates; and
(F) any other indicator the Secretary or eligible
entity may identify; and
(2) increasing diversity and decreasing racial or
socioeconomic isolation in covered schools.
SEC. 8. ANNUAL REPORTS.
An eligible entity that receives a grant under section 4 shall submit
to the Secretary, at such time and in such manner as the Secretary may
require, an annual report that includes--
(1) a description of the efforts of the eligible entity to
increase inclusivity;
(2) information on the progress of the eligible entity with
respect to the performance measures described in section 7; and
(3) the data supporting such progress.
SEC. 9. APPLICABILITY.
Section 426 of the General Education Provisions Act (20 U.S.C. 1228)
shall not apply with respect to activities carried out under a grant
under this Act.
SEC. 10. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
There are authorized to be appropriated to carry out this Act such
sums as may be necessary for fiscal year 2020 and each of the 5
succeeding fiscal years.
SEC. 11. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Covered school.--The term ``covered school'' means--
(A) a publicly-funded early childhood education
program;
(B) a public elementary school; or
(C) a public secondary school.
(2) Eligible entity.--The term ``eligible entity'' means a
local educational agency, a consortium of such agencies, an
educational service agency, or regional educational agency that
at the time of the application of such eligible entity has
significant achievement gaps and socioeconomic or racial
segregation within or between the school districts served by
such entity.
(3) ESEA terms.--The terms ``educational service agency'',
``elementary school'', ``local educational agency'',
``secondary school'', and ``Secretary'' have the meanings given
such terms in section 8101 of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 7801).
(4) Publicly-funded early childhood education program.--The
term ``publicly-funded early childhood education program''
means an early childhood education program (as defined in
section 103(8) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C.
1003(8)) that receives State or Federal funds.
Purpose and Summary
H.R. 2639, the Strength in Diversity Act, introduced by
Congresswoman Marcia Fudge and Chairman Bobby Scott, if passed,
would authorize the first new investment in school integration
since the federal government began providing funding for magnet
schools for the purposes of school desegregation in the
Emergency School Aid Act of 1972.\1\ This legislation supports
local educational agencies (LEAs) in realizing the promise of
Brown v. Board of Education, that separate is inherently
unequal and that educational opportunity is a ``right which
must be made available to all on equal terms.''\2\ The bill is
consistent with U.S Supreme Court precedent which holds that
public schools may use race-conscious measures to ensure equal
educational opportunity.\3\
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\1\Pub. L. No. 92-318, 86 Stat. 235, June 23, 1972.
\2\Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 493 (1954).
\3\Parents Involved in Cmty. Schs. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551
U.S. 701, 797-98 (2007) (``This Nation has a moral and ethical
obligation to fulfill its historic commitment to creating an integrated
society that ensures equal opportunity for all of its children. A
compelling interest exists in avoiding racial isolation, an interest
that a school district, in its discretion and expertise, may choose to
pursue . . . The decision today should not prevent school districts
from continuing the important work of bringing together students of
different racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds.'') (Kennedy, J.,
concurring).
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Our nation's system of public education has never come
close to achieving full racial integration of public education.
But there is now a growing prevalence of racial segregation
and, in certain regions of the country, re-segregation in
public schools that undermines meaningful progress made toward
racial integration in the decades following the Brown decision,
denying millions of students of color high-quality public
education. According to recent reports, public schools are now
more segregated by race and class than any time since the
1960s.\4\ Federal intervention is needed to confront this
persistent, pervasive injustice, yet the federal government has
continually retreated from its role in promoting school
integration.
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\4\Erica Frankenberg, et al. Harming Our Common Future: America's
Segregated Schools 65 Years after Brown, 10 May 2019,
www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-
and-diversity/harming-our-common-future-americas-segregated-schools-65-
years-after-brown/Brown-65-050919v4-final.pdf.; see Nikole Hannah-
Jones, Segregation Now, ProPublica, Apr. 16, 2014, available at https:/
/www.propublica.org/article/segregation-now-full-text; see also U.S.
Gov't Accountability Office, GAO-16-345, K-12 Education: Better Use of
Information Could Help Agencies Identify Disparities and address Racial
Discrimination (2016) (documenting the growth in school districts with
high concentrations of low-income Black and Hispanic students, and
recognizing the inequitable conditions many of them share).
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The purpose of H.R. 2639 is to provide federal support for
school integration. The bill authorizes funding for communities
to develop and implement evidence-based plans to tackle racial
and socioeconomic segregation in public schools. Planning
grants authorized by the bill will allow LEAs to study
segregation in their schools, evaluate current policies to
identify revisions necessary to achieve integration, and
develop a robust family, student, and community engagement plan
to carry out voluntary integration efforts. Implementation
grants authorized by the bill provide resources to LEAs to
implement an evidence-based integration plan and rigorously
evaluate the effectiveness of the plan. Implementation grants
may also be used to recruit, hire, and train teachers to
improve diversity in the teaching profession, support
activities in a district under a court-ordered desegregation
plan, and fund other innovative activities designed to increase
racial and socioeconomic diversity in schools, prioritizing
funding for school districts that address racial isolation in
their schools. H.R. 2639 also strengthens other federal efforts
to promote integration, including providing dedicated research
funding. Funds authorized under H.R 2639 would not be subject
to section 426 of the General Education Provisions Act
(GEPA),\5\ an antiquated restriction on implementation of
federal funds that hampers local efforts to integrate public
schools.
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\5\20 U.S.C. Sec. 1228 (2018).
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As of the filing of this report, H.R. 2639 is supported by
the following organizations: American Federation of Teachers
(AFT); Association of University Centers on Disabilities
(AUCD); Center on Law, Inequality, and Metropolitan Equity--
Rutgers Law School; Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race
and Justice--Harvard Law School; Integrate NYC4me; Lawyers'
Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Legal Defense Fund,
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP-LDF); Magnet Schools of America; National Association of
Elementary School Principals (NAESP); National Association of
Secondary School Principals (NASSP); National Coalition on
School Diversity (NCSD); National Education Association (NEA);
National Women's Law Center (NWLC); New York Appleseed; the
Office of Transformation and Innovation at the Dallas
Independent School District; Poverty & Race Research Action
Council; Unidos; and the Voluntary Interdistrict Choice
Corporation.
Committee Action
101ST CONGRESS
On November 28, 1989, the Committee held a hearing titled
``Hearing on the Federal Enforcement of Equal Education
Opportunity Laws'' to assess the Department of Education's
Office for Civil Rights' (OCR's) enforcement of laws
prohibiting discrimination in federally-funded education
programs on the basis of race, sex, or disability. This
oversight hearing included an examination of OCR's lack of
enforcement of civil rights, with a specific focus on racial
discrimination and school desegregation orders, the
resegregation of public schools, racial tensions on college
campuses and concern that the policies of the George H.W. Bush
Administration regarding school choice would entrench existing
segregation and allow for more resegregation in public
education. Testifying before the Committee were William L.
Smith, Acting Assistant Secretary, Office for Civil Rights,
Department of Education; James P. Turner, Acting Assistant
Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice;
Phyllis McClure, Director, Division of Policy and Information,
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Elliott C. Lichtman,
Attorney; Ethel Simon-McWilliams, Director, Desegregation
Assistance Center, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory;
Gary Orfield, Director, Metropolitan Opportunity Project,
University of Chicago; David F. Chavkin, Senior Program
Analyst, National Center for Clinical Infant Programs; Ellen J.
Vargyas, Chair, National Coalition for Women and Girls in
Education, National Women's Law Center; Pamela M. Young,
Legislative Counsel, D.C. Bureau, NAACP; Norma V. Cantu,
Director, Elementary and Secondary Programs, Mexican American
Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Elliot M. Mincberg, Legal
Director, People for the American Way, Citizens Commission on
Civil Rights; and James J. Lyons, National Association for
Bilingual Education.
114TH CONGRESS
On February 11, 2015, the Committee marked up and ordered
to be reported the bill H.R. 5, the Student Success Act to the
House by a vote of 21-16. The bill was passed by the House on
July 8, 2015 by a vote of 218-213. The Senate Committee on
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions reported the bill S.
1177, the Every Child Achieves Act to the Senate on April 30,
2015. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 79-18 on July 16,
2015. Subsequently, both chambers agreed to a conference to
resolve the differences between the two bills. The conference
report on S. 1177, retitled the Every Student Succeeds Act
(ESSA), was filed November 30, 2015. On December 2, 2015, the
House agreed to the conference report on ESSA by a vote of 359-
64. The Senate agreed to the conference report on December 9,
2015 by a vote of 85-12. ESSA was signed into law on December
10, 2015.
Among the provisions included in ESSA was the
reauthorization of the Magnet Schools Assistance Program
(MSAP). MSAP provides support to local educational agencies to
establish and operate magnet schools for the purposes of
implementing a court-ordered desegregation plan or a voluntary
federally approved desegregation plan. ESSA exempted MSAP from
GEPA section 426, allowing funds under the program to be used
to provide transportation for students to and from magnet
schools. ESSA also included provisions to support states and
LEAs in using racial integration to support school improvement
strategies required under Title I-A and support diversity in
the Charter School Program.\6\
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\6\See 20 U.S.C. Sec. 6311(d)(1)(B), (2)(C) (requiring the
identification of resource inequities at schools identified by the
State for a comprehensive support and improvement plan and also
requiring that same identification in the case of schools where a
subgroup of students would on their own lead to identification for
comprehensive support and improvement); 20 U.S.C. Sec. 7221d(b)(5)(A)
(``In awarding grants under this section, the Secretary shall give
priority to eligible entities that plan to operate or manage high-
quality charter schools with racially and socioeconomically diverse
student bodies''); see generally GAO-16-345, supra note 4, at 10-15
(``The Percentage of High-Poverty Schools with Mostly Black or Hispanic
Students Increased over Time, and Such Schools Tend to Have Fewer
Resources'').
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115TH CONGRESS
First Session, Other Legislative Action
The Committee worked with the Committee on Appropriations
to develop a provision for inclusion in H.R. 3358, the
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education,
and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018. The provision
revised one of two long-standing prohibitions on funds
appropriated under the bill from being used for the
transportation of students or staff to comply with title VI of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The new language exempted the
establishment of a magnet school from the relevant long-
standing prohibition. As modified, the language was eventually
included in section 302 of H.R. 1625, the Consolidated
Appropriations Act, 2018 (FY18 Omnibus), which was signed into
law on March 23, 2018. In an explanatory statement in the
Congressional Record, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, Chairman of
the House Committee on Appropriations commented, ``[t]he
agreement includes a new general provision to exempt the Magnet
Schools program from one long-standing general provision on
transporting students. ESSA reauthorized the Magnet School
program in 2015 and allowed funds to be used for transportation
and this agreement should not impede the Magnet School program
from doing so. The agreement notes that the Committees on
Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate
should consider a longer-term solution to this issue during the
fiscal year 2019 appropriations process.''\7\
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\7\164 Cong. Rec. H2697, 2707 (daily ed. Mar. 22, 2018) (statement
of Rep. Frelinghuysen).
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Second Session, Other Legislative Action
The Committee again worked with the Committee on
Appropriations on longstanding anti-integration riders during
the Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19) appropriations process. As a
result, H.R. 6470, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human
Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations
Act, 2019, advanced without the rider prohibiting funds from
being used for the transportation of students or teachers in
order to overcome racial imbalances or to carry out a plan of
racial desegregation. The bill also advanced without the rider
prohibiting funds from being used to require the transportation
of any student to a school other than the school which is
nearest the student's home in order to comply with title VI of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI). Both riders were
absent from H.R. 6157, the Department of Defense and Labor,
Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act,
2019 and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019 (FY19 Omnibus),
which was signed into law on September 28, 2019. Enactment of
H.R. 6157 (115th) marked the first annual appropriations law
since 1974 to be enacted without these anti-integration
provisions.
116TH CONGRESS
On April 30, 2019, the Committee held a legislative hearing
on school integration and civil rights enforcement. A review of
Committee archives suggests this is the first hearing focused
on school segregation since the 101st Congress, nearly 30 years
ago. The hearing, titled ``Brown v. Board of Education at 65: A
Promise Unfulfilled,'' was used to inform the development of
H.R. 2639. The Committee heard testimony on the following
issues: the federal role in fulfilling the promise of Brown,
the importance of the federal government in supporting local
efforts to combat persistent segregation and discrimination in
K-12 education, the rescission of Title VI sub-regulatory
guidance documents by the Trump Administration, and the Trump
Administration's enforcement of civil rights laws. The
Committee heard testimony from: Mr. John C. Brittain, Professor
of Law, University of the District of Columbia Law School,
Washington, DC; Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, Ed.D., President and
CEO, Learning Policy Institute, Palo Alto, CA; Ms. Maritza
White, Parent Advocate, Washington DC; Mr. Daniel J. Losen,
M.Ed., J.D., Director, Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the
Civil Rights Project at UCLA, Lexington, MA; Mr. Dion J.
Pierre, Research Associate, National Association of Scholars,
Ridgewood, NY; and Mr. Richard A. Carranza, Chancellor, New
York City Schools, New York, NY.
On May 9, 2019, Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) introduced H.R.
2639, the Strength in Diversity Act of 2019, with Chairman
Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Rep. Gregorio Sablan (D-MP), Chair of
the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary
Education, as original co-sponsors. On May 16, 2019, the
Committee considered H.R. 2639 in a legislative session and
ordered it reported favorably, as amended, to the House of
Representative by a vote of 26-20. The Committee considered and
adopted the following amendments to H.R. 2639:
Rep. Fudge offered an Amendment in the Nature of a
Substitute (ANS) that made numerous changes to H.R. 2639. The
ANS improved provisions under section 5 of the bill to ensure
outreach to parents and students is produced in commonly
understandable language. It also ensured consultation with
students and families in the district or region targeted for
diversity improvement efforts. Under section 6, the ANS
expanded planning grant activities to include the development
of a robust family, student, and community engagement plan. It
also explicitly stated that funds can be used to support school
districts under a court-ordered school desegregation plan. The
ANS expanded implementation grants activities to include the
development of innovative and equitable school assignment plans
and other innovative activities to increase racial and
socioeconomic diversity. Under section 7, the ANS added
reducing school discipline rates as a measure of a school
integration plan's success. Under section 8, the ANS expanded
the annual reporting requirement to includes a description of
the entity's efforts to increase inclusivity in schools.
Finally, the ANS added a new section to specify that GEPA
section 426 does not apply to funds authorized by the bill.
During the legislative session the Committee considered one
amendment to the ANS:
Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA) offered an amendment to the ANS that
proposed to strike the authorization of the new federal grant
program created in H.R. 2639 to support voluntary community-
driven efforts to increase diversity in schools. The amendment
instead amended section 4106 of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965\8\ to allow school districts to use funds
authorized by such act to develop or implement strategies to
improve diversity and reduce or eliminate racial or
socioeconomic isolation in schools. The amendment also
permitted LEAs to use funds received under section 4106 to
cover fees associated with accelerated learning examinations
given to low-income students. Lastly, the amendment exempted
funds used pursuant to the authorized uses from the
requirements of GEPA section 426. Because the amendment
proposed to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of
1965, a law not amended by the underlying bill, the amendment
expanded the scope of the bill and was ruled out of order by
the Chairman.
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\8\20 U.S.C. Sec. 7116 (2018).
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Second Session, Other Legislative Action
The Committee again worked with the Committee on
Appropriations on longstanding anti-integration riders during
the Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) appropriations process. As a
result, H.R. 7617, the Defense, Commerce, Justice, Science,
Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General
Government, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education,
Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development Appropriations
Act, 2021 included a provision striking GEPA section 426 from
law entirely. H.R. 7617 passed the House July 31, 2020 by a
vote of 217-197.
Committee Views
H.R. 2639, the Strength and Diversity Act, authorizes
federal support for school districts seeking to improve racial
and socioeconomic diversity through integration of public
schools. With 2019 marking the 65th anniversary of Brown v.
Board of Education, the Committee considered H.R. 2639 at a
time of natural reflection on the legacy of the unanimous
decision declaring racially segregated schooling
unconstitutional.
Despite meaningful progress in the decades following the
Brown ruling due to robust federal enforcement of civil rights
laws, the 65th anniversary of the ruling is marked by a growing
prevalence of racial segregation and, in certain regions of the
country, re-segregation in public schools that undermines such
progress. In 2014, Ranking Member George Miller, House
Committee on the Judiciary Ranking Member John Conyers, and
now-Chairman Scott commissioned a Government Accountability
Office (GAO) report on racial isolation in public schools and
the impact of such segregation on educational equity. Released
in 2016, the GAO found high-poverty schools where 75-100
percent of the students were low-income and Black or Latino
increased from 9 percent in 2000-2001 to 16 percent in 2013-
2014.\9\ The report also found that these schools had fewer
resources and disproportionately high rates of exclusionary
school discipline.\10\ Other reports and articles have all
suggested that segregation in many public school settings is
reaching levels unseen since the 1960s.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\GAO-16-345 (2016) at 10.
\10\Id. At 16.
\11\See, e.g., Alvin Chang, The data proves that school segregation
is getting worse, Vox, Mar. 5, 2018, available at https://www.vox.com/
2018/3/5/17080218/school-segregation-getting-worse-data.
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On its face, the Brown decision is not profound. The
conclusion that the opportunity of an education, ``where the
state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be
made available to all on equal terms,''\12\ is a logical one
based upon the most cursory interpretation of the foundational
documents of the United States.\13\ It receives monumental
status based largely on the 335 years of history and
jurisprudence that precede it: a record of systemic racial
subjugation of African-Americans, first as enslaved people,
later as second-class citizens. The revolutionary impact of
Brown demands regular examination of the federal government's
role in realizing or hindering full integration of public
education. Without recognizing the legally and socially
enforced American racial caste system that existed in the 335
years before Brown, it is hard to understand how revolutionary
the decision truly was. Considering Brown merely as the end of
the effort to integrate schools and not the beginning minimizes
both the decades of local recalcitrance to the decision and the
federal intervention necessary to enforce it. And, perhaps most
importantly for the Committee's consideration of H.R. 2639,
ignoring the concerted efforts to dismantle Brown and the
subsequent retrenchment of school segregation over the last 30
years threatens to leave us with a Brown decision that insists
on school integration and a patchwork of state and federal
policies that deftly undermine its mandate. The Committee
believes H.R. 2639 is a small, but meaningful step toward
ensuring the promise of equal educational opportunity for all
children, regardless of race, in fulfillment of Brown 65 years
ago.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 493 (1954).
\13\The Declaration of Independence, para. 2 (U.S. 1776); U.S.
Const. amend. XIV Sec. 1.
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African American Education, 1619-1955
The moral and practical implications of slavery are at the
heart of every major political question in the United States
prior to the Civil War, including the educational deprivation
of African Americans. The racial caste system that stripped
enslaved people of their agency and humanity also worked to
keep them uneducated. State laws both prohibited enslaved
people from learning to read and write and made the act of
educating the enslaved a crime as well.\14\ While some slave
owners saw a moral duty to educate the enslaved to at least
read the Bible, revolts led by educated enslaved people in the
early 1800s led to stricter enforcement of these anti-education
laws.\15\ Even in parts of the country free of chattel slavery,
the education of African Americans alongside White Americans
was rare.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\See e.g., Peter H. Irons, Jim Crow's Children: the Broken
Promise of the Brown Decision 3 (first ed. 2002). For example, in 1740,
South Carolina passed a law that stated, ``. . . who shall hereafter
teach or cause any slave or slaves to be taught to write, or shall use
or employ any slave as a scribe, in any matter of writing whatsoever,
hereafter taught to write, every such person or persons shall, for
every such offense, forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds, current
money.'' An Act for the Better Ordering and Governing Negroes and Other
Slaves in this Province, 1740 S.C. Acts, 670.
\15\See Id. at 2-5.
\16\Id. at 5-6. Inviting free African Americans into schools would
further weave them into the fabric of America, a proposition that even
some opposed to slavery felt went too far. ``If the free colored people
were generally taught to read, it might be an inducement to them to
remain in this country. WE WOULD OFFER THEM NO SUCH INDUCEMENT.''
American Anti-Slavery Society, American anti-slavery almanac, for 1839,
Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection, Cornell University.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
African Americans' access to education improved after the
Civil War, with the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and
Fifteenth Amendments and Reconstruction. During Reconstruction,
multiple states passed laws and state constitutional amendments
enshrining African-American education, both in segregated and
integrated settings.\17\ The Freedman's Bureau, the federal
agency established by Congress to provide aid and services to
recently-freed African Americans, established schools
throughout the South.\18\ Twenty-one institutions of higher
education, open to all, but dedicated to the education of
African Americans, were founded in the first five years after
the Civil War.\19\ This outbreak of progress in education, like
other efforts to integrate African Americans into society, was
eventually rolled back with the South's response to and the
federal retreat from Reconstruction.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\Irons, supra note 14, at 7.
\18\Id. at 7-11.
\19\``HBCU Timeline: 1837 to 1870'', ThoughtCo., available at
https://www.thoughtco.com/hbcu-timeline-1837-to-1870-45451.
\20\Irons, supra note 14, at 11-13.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Racially segregated schools proliferated in the U.S. during
Jim Crow, the legal system of discrimination that began with
the end of Reconstruction and the 1877 removal of federal
troops from the South. Jim Crow laws in both Northern and
Southern states established white supremacy, maintained the
systematic disenfranchisement of African Americans, and
physically separated communities based on race.\21\ Jim Crow
laws were affirmed by the Supreme Court's 1896 holding in
Plessy v. Ferguson upholding segregation in public
transportation as constitutional and enshrining the legal
fiction of ``separate but equal.''\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\Id. at 13.
\22\163 U.S. 537, 544-46 (1896).
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Jim Crow schools were not uniform in their quality. Some,
especially in the rural South, were rife with indignities.\23\
Dilapidated schools with overcrowded classrooms, shortened
school terms, underpaid teachers, fewer resources, and outdated
curriculum were common.\24\ Even in Mid-Atlantic and Northern
cities, where access to better education facilities was
available, schools were still provided fewer resources at every
level.\25\ In addition, some states passed laws that subjected
African Americans to double taxation where African American
parents were required to pay taxes for their children and white
children to attend school.\26\ Further, states passed laws that
excluded schools that taught African American children from
receiving taxpayer dollars.\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\Irons, supra note 14, at 34-37.
\24\Id.
\25\Id. at 98-99 (``The disparities between white and black schools
in Washington were not as glairing as those in the Deep South states,
but they were nonetheless galling to the city's black parents, whose
children were often forced to attend schools with double shifts while
classrooms in nearby white schools had plenty of empty seats.'').
\26\Noliwe Rooks, Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and
the End of Public Education 52 (New Press, New York 2017).
\27\Id. at 52.
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This was the backdrop to the legal arguments mounted in a
series of cases challenging racial discrimination in public
settings leading up to Brown. As early as the 1930s, cases
overturning segregation in various settings, including graduate
school admissions, teacher pay, and interstate buses began to
lay the groundwork to challenge segregation in public
education.\28\ Chief Justice Earl Warren, who wrote and
delivered the Court's unanimous decision in Brown, agreed with
the appellants that psychological evidence showed African
American children were severely harmed by segregation. The
Court concluded that ``[t]o separate them [children] from
others of similar age and qualification solely because of their
race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in
the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way
unlikely ever to be undone.''\29\ He went on to deliver these
words:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\E.g., Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950), Henderson v.
U.S., 339 U.S. 816 (1950).
\29\Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 494.
``Today, education is perhaps the most important
function of state and local governments. Compulsory
school attendance laws and the great expenditures for
education both demonstrate our recognition of the
importance of education to our democratic society. It
is required in the performance of our most basic public
responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It
is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is
a principal instrument in awakening the child to
cultural values, in preparing him for later
professional training, and in helping him to adjust
normally to his environment. In these days, it is
doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to
succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an
education. Such an opportunity, where the state has
undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made
available to all on equal terms. . . . In the field of
public education, the doctrine of `separate but equal'
has no place. Separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal.''\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\Id. at 493, 495.
Education is no less important in 2020, and the harms
inflicted on students in segregated schools are no less real as
when they were presented in Brown. H.R. 2639 is as necessary
now to ameliorate the effects of segregation as was the federal
response to compel school integration post-Brown.
Federal Support for Integration after Brown Narrows the Achievement Gap
The Court's historic ruling in Brown was not the end of
school segregation, it was the beginning of a long and
difficult struggle to fulfill the promise of equity in
education. In 1955, in Brown v. Board of Education (Brown II),
the Court ordered states to desegregate ``with all deliberate
speed.'' Since the decision did not include a definitive
timeline, many states and localities saw this lack of
specificity as an invitation to drag their feet to integrate
their schools.\31\ Such efforts included the denial of state
funding to integrated schools, the state-mandated closure of
public schools that agreed to integrate, the firing of African
American teachers, and the diversion of public dollars from
public schools to establish private schools for white
children.\32\ Ten years after Brown, the ``Massive Resistance''
to integration across the South left many students stuck in
segregated schools, and in some cases, without access to any
public education.\33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\Brown v. Bd. of Educ. (Brown II), 349 U.S. 294 (1955).
\32\See generally Irons, supra note 14, at 172-209 (Chapters 10 and
11, `War Against the Constitution' and ``Too Much Deliberation, Not
Enough Speed' provide detail on the response to the Brown decision
throughout the South.)
\33\E.g., Charles Ogletree, All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on
the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education Ch. 8 (``In fact,
the southern segregated school system remained almost completely
segregated for a full decade after Brown. By 1964, only one-fiftieth of
all southern Black children attended integrated schools.'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recognizing a constitutional duty to remedy inequality and
inequity, President Lyndon Johnson and Congress crystallized
the federal role in public education as an arbiter of equity,
first with the Civil Rights Act of 1964,\34\ and subsequently
with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965
(ESEA).\35\ The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal
government the legal tools to realize the promise of Brown. The
law prohibits racial discrimination in schools, employment, and
places of public accommodation, and expands the authority of
federal agencies to protect the civil rights of all students.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also gave the federal government
the power to enforce desegregation plans in local school
districts under threat of federal sanction, but also authorized
grants in title IV to support desegregation in communities that
took voluntary action.\36\ Congress appropriated to Southern
and border states $176 million for federal education funding in
1964 and almost $590 million in 1966 under the new ESEA
law.\37\ Pursuant to title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
these states risked losing out on receiving this federal
funding if they continued to drag their feet on integration,
which many historians suggest accelerated States' efforts to
implement desegregation plans.\38\ As evidenced by current data
on racial isolation in public schools, racial segregation
remains a national crisis that demands a comprehensive federal
response like we saw with ESEA. While in and of itself
insufficient, enactment of H.R. 2639 is central to such a
response.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\Pub. L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241 (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C.
Sec. 2000a et seq. (2018)).
\35\Pub. L. 89-10, 79 Stat. 27 (codified as amended at 20 U.S.C.
Sec. 6301 (2018)).
\36\42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000c-4 (2018).
\37\Erica Frankenberg & Kendra Taylor, ESEA and the Civil Rights
Act: An Interbranch Approach to Furthering Desegregation, 1 Russell
Sage Found. J. of the Sci. 3, 37 (2015).
\38\Id. The concept behind title VI was first introduced by the
former Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (D-NY).
In 1946, when ``separate but equal'' was still the law, Rep. Powell
successfully attached an anti-discrimination provision to a school
lunch program bill, stating ``No funds made available pursuant to this
title shall be paid or disbursed to any state or school if, in carrying
out its functions under this title, it makes any discrimination because
of race, creed, color or national origins of children or between types
of schools, or with respect to a state that maintains separate schools
for minority and majority races, it discriminates between such schools
on this account.'' After Brown, Powell modified his amendment--it now
prohibited funds from going to any school district that continued to
segregate schools. The Powell amendment sank efforts to authorize
federal education spending in both the Eisenhower and Kennedy
administrations. See Joy Milligan, Subsidizing Segregation, 104 Va. L.
Rev 847, 869-70, 891-94 (2018); Jeffrey Jenkins, Building Toward Major
Policy Change: Congressional Action on Civil Rights, 1941-1950, 31 L. &
Hist. Rev. 139 (2013).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ESEA sought to close opportunity and achievement gaps in
public education through grants which targeted resources and
services to communities with high concentrations of poverty.
This poverty too often resulted in low-quality schools due to
inequitable public education financing systems,\39\ many of
which persist today. Since most communities fund their public
school systems via property taxes,\40\ wealthier, typically
whiter communities with higher property tax bases invariably
can provide more resources for their educational facilities.
Communities surrounding schools continue to be largely
homogenized by wealth, or the significant lack thereof, due in
large part to the impact of local, state, and federal housing
policies intended to segregate white from nonwhite families.
These policies continue to deny nonwhites access to asset
accumulation and upward mobility and have corresponding effects
on the quality of schools in these communities as well.\41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\E.g., Jeff Raikes & Linda Darling-Hammond, Money Matters: Why
Our Education Funding systems Are Derailing the American Dream, LPI
Blog (Feb. 18, 2019), https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/blog/why-our-
education-funding-systems-are-derailing-american-dream.
\40\Andrew Reschovsky, The Future of U.S. Public School Revenue
from the Property Tax 1 (Lincoln Inst. of Land Policy, 2017) available
at https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/future-us-
public-school-revenue-policy-brief_0.pdf.
\41\Angela Hanks, et al., Systematic Inequality: How America's
Structural Racism Helped Create the Black-White Wealth Gap, Ctr. for
Am. Progress (Feb. 21, 2018, 9:03 am), https://
www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2018/02/21/447051/
systematic-inequality/; see generally Richard Rothstein, The Color of
Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
(2017) (describing the legacy of local, state, and federal policy in
creating segregated neighborhoods throughout the United States,
including the systemic destruction of integrated neighborhoods, and the
subsidization of suburbs which denied land sale to African-Americans
through restrictive covenants).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1966, Congress appropriated $1 billion in education
funding for ESEA title I, part A (ESEA Title I).\42\ This was
monumental because in targeting federal aid to areas of
concentrated poverty, federal supports were improving equity of
educational opportunity in regions of the country where de
facto segregation resulted in racially segregated and
economically inequitable public schools. And again, because
public schools received federal funding under ESEA Title I,
they were now responsible for complying with Title VI and could
not discriminate on the basis of race.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\Rebecca Skinner & Leah Rosenstiel, Con. Research Serv., R44898,
History of the ESEA Title I-A Formulas, 13 (2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite ever-present criticism, the federal efforts to
promote integration and enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964
had long-lasting effects. Court-ordered desegregation not only
substantially reduced racial segregation, it also led to a
dramatic increase in per-pupil spending, an average increase of
more than 20 percent per student.\43\ In addition, test scores
for African American students improved and the achievement gap
narrowed. Specifically, at the height of school integration
efforts in 1988: 44 percent of African American students
nationwide attended integrated schools.\44\ The achievement gap
in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress
had fallen from 39 points in 1971 to 18 points\45\ and the
mathematics achievement gap had fallen by 20 points over the
same time period.\46\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\43\Rucker C. Johnson, Long-run Impacts of School Desgregation &
School Quality on Adult Attainments 16-17 (Nat'l Bureau of Econ.
Research, Working Paper No. 16664, 2005) available at https://
gsppi.berkeley.edu/ruckerj/johnson_schooldesegregation_NBERw16664.pdf.
\44\Gary Orfield et al., Brown at 60: Great Progress, a Long
Retreat and an Uncertain Future 10 UCLA C.R. Project, (2014).
\45\Linda Darling-Hammond, Learning Policy Institute, Education and
the Path to One Nation, Indivisible, Learning Policy Institute, 4
(2018).
\46\Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simply put, in the two decades the federal government was
most active in supporting and advancing school integration, the
U.S. was able to cut the achievement gap nearly in half.
Notably, a recent report on the achievement gap from the Hoover
Institution, a conservative think tank, found school
integration was the only federal reform that has successfully
narrowed the achievement gap.\47\ Enactment of H.R. 2639 would
support participating LEAs to not only integrate their schools,
but also narrow racial achievement gaps, a mandate of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as amended by the Every
Student Succeeds Act.\48\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\47\Press Release, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, No
Change in Student Achievement Gap in Last 50 Years (Apr. 1, 2019)
available at https://www.hoover.org/news/no-change-student-achievement-
gap-last-50-years (``The only program that seems to have had national
impacts over this period has been school desegregation . . . During the
early period of our study, the gap narrowed, but this closing of the
black-white achievement gap stopped a quarter of a century ago when the
desegregation efforts slowed and stopped.'').
\48\20 U.S.C. Sec. 6311(c)(4)(A)(III) (2018) (requiring statewide
accountability systems to include ``ambitious . . . long-term goals''
with ``measurements of interim progress'' for subgroups of students who
are behind on academic achievement and high school graduation rates
toward the goal of the state making ``significant progress in closing
statewide proficiency and graduation rate gaps'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Research has shown that diverse learning environments lead
to numerous academic, cognitive, and social benefits for
students, including improved student academic achievement and
high school graduation, and preparation for diverse collegiate
and work environments.\49\ School integration did not
negatively impact white student achievement or educational
attainment,\50\ while the biases of white children increased in
racially homogenous school environments.\51\ In an amicus brief
in support of the respondents in the Parents Involved case, a
group of over 500 researchers concluded the following about
segregated schools:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\49\Brief for American Educational Research Association as Amici
Curiae Supporting Respondents at 11, 27-28, 34, Parents Involved in
Cmty. Schs. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2006) (No. 05-
908, 05-915), 2006 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs LEXIS 1038.
\50\Id. at 36.
\51\Id. at 15-17.
. . . [M]ore often than not, segregated minority
schools offer profoundly unequal educational
opportunities. This inequality is manifested in many
ways, including fewer qualified, experienced teachers,
greater instability caused by rapid turnover of
faculty, fewer educational resources, and limited
exposure to peers who can positively influence academic
learning. No doubt as a result of these disparities,
measures of educational outcomes, such as scores on
standardized achievement tests and high school
graduation rates, are lower in schools with high
percentages of nonwhite students.\52\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\52\Brief of 553 Social Scientists as Amici Curiae Supporting
Respondents at 4-5, Parents Involved in Cmty. Schs. v. Seattle Sch.
Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2006) (No. 05-908, 05-915), 2006 U.S. S. Ct.
Briefs LEXIS 1024.
The positive effects of school integration also accrue over
a lifetime. One of the most rigorous studies on the effects of
court-ordered integration found a profound long-term impact on
students born between 1945 and 1970 who attended integrated
schools after the Brown decision.\53\ The study found that high
school graduation rates increased by nearly 2 percentage points
every year for African American students who attended
integrated schools,\54\ while over time their wages increased
by 15 percent, annual family income increased by 25 percent,
annual earnings increased by 30 percent, and good health
outcomes increased by 11 percent.\55\ At the same time, their
chances of falling into adult poverty declined by 11 percent,
and the probability of adult incarceration decreased by 22
percent.\56\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\53\Johnson, supra note 43 at 2.
\54\Id. at 18-19 (``The results indicate that, for blacks, there is
an immediate jump in the likelihood of graduating from high school with
exposure to court-ordered desegregation, and each additional year of
exposure leads to a 1.8 percentage-point increase in the likelihood of
high school graduation with an additional jump for those exposed
throughout their school-age years.'')
\55\Id. at 20-24.
\56\Id. at 21-22.
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H.R. 2639 is a remedy for federal policy that has retreated from
integration
Despite the successes of school integration, public
backlash to the Civil Rights Movement never fully abated. While
integration efforts did continue, the 1968 election of Richard
Nixon marked the beginning of a gradual retreat in federal
support for school integration and enforcement of civil rights
law that led to the current state of racial segregation in
America's schools.\57\ In Congress, resistance came both from a
lack of a legislative agenda to build upon the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, and a concentration instead on legislation limiting
federal power to aid integration efforts. At the other end of
Pennsylvania Avenue, successive Presidential administrations
de-prioritized oversight of state and local school
desegregation work, aided localities in evading that oversight
in some cases, and nominated federal judges with ideologies
antithetical to an expansive view of Brown. And over the last
50 years the federal judiciary has, without overturning Brown,
severely limited federal enforcement of its mandate and
provided legal cover for localities to operate increasingly
segregated schools.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\57\See Janel George & Linda Darling-Hammond, Learning Policy
Institute, The Federal Role and School Integration: Brown's Promise and
Present Challenges 7 (2019) available at https://
learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/
Federal_Role_School_Integration_REPORT.pdf.
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As early as the late 1960s, federal support for
desegregation begins to wane. Congress took many more (and
longer sustained) actions to block how federal funds could be
used to support school desegregation, especially when it came
to the politically volatile subject of busing. This is despite
a Supreme Court decision upholding busing as a remedy to
achieve integration,\58\ and the application of that decision
in both Southern communities with school systems segregated de
jure and Northern communities segregated de facto.\59\ The use
of busing to achieve desegregation and the groundswell of
resistance to it in White neighborhoods across the country led
the Democratically-controlled Congress to pass the Education
Amendments of 1972, which included an amendment limiting the
use of federal funds for busing to local, voluntary
requests.\60\ Northern liberals in both parties, who had seen
desegregation as a problem cabined to the South, now found
themselves voting often with pro-segregation
representatives.\61\ In 1974, Congress first attached a riders
to the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health,
Education, and Welfare (HEW, now the Department of Education)
that prohibited federal funds from being used for
transportation to support integration.\62\ These riders
continued to appear in Education appropriations bills until
fiscal year 2019.\63\ And as a final backstop to ensure federal
funds would not support busing for desegregation purposes, the
Education Amendments of 1974 included a provision that
prohibits school districts from using federal funds for
transportation to promote racial integration. This provision
was codified as GEPA section 426\64\ and remains in federal law
today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\58\Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Educ., 402 U.S. 1, 30-31
(1971).
\59\Irons, supra note 14, at 225 (``The distinction between de
facto and de jure segregation struck many federal judges as artificial,
and they issue a spate of busing orders in the months after the Swann
decision. When the new school year began in September 1971, more than
half a million students in dozens of cities were assigned to schools
outside their neighborhoods . . .'').
\60\Pub. L. No. 92-318 86 Stat. 235, 371(codified as amended in
scattered section of 20 U.S.C.) (1972); see Jack Jennings, Presidents,
Congress, and the Public Schools: The Politics of Education Reform 126-
27; Irons, supra note 14, at 226-33.
\61\Irons, supra note 14, at 226-33 (describing a liberal Democrat
House Member who went from leading floor action against anti-busing
amendments to assuring his constituents he would ``do whatever is
necessary by way of further legislation or a constitutional amendment
to prevent implementation of [desegregation orders] by cross-district
busing'', after parts of his congressional district were placed under
desegregation orders.).
\62\Pub. L. No. 93-192, Sec. Sec. 208-09, 87 Stat. 746, 761 (1973).
\63\See supra, Part COMMITTEE ACTION, 115th Congress, Second
Session, Other Legislative Action.
\64\20 U.S.C. Sec. 1228 (2018).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The opposition to school integration and efforts to reverse
the promise of Brown legislatively culminated in 1979, when
House members opposed to busing succeeded in bringing an anti-
busing constitutional amendment to the House floor (H.J. Res.
74) via a discharge petition.\65\ The amendment failed to win a
simple majority of the House, much less the two-thirds majority
needed to move the amendment on the Floor.\66\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\65\``House Rejects Anti-Busing Amendment.'' CQ Almanac 1979, 35th
ed., 482-84. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1980.
\66\96th Cong. Roll Call Vote #374 (227-183), July 24, 1979.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Strength in Diversity Act nullifies GEPA section 426 as
it pertains to funds in the bill. The GEPA provision was
written to undermine the Court's mandate in Brown and
enforcement of federal civil rights laws and keep students of
color segregated in under-resourced schools. As such, it is the
position of the Committee that it should be struck entirely.
However, due to considerations of germaneness under the Rules
of the House, H.R. 2639 as reported did not strike GEPA section
426 entirely but ensures that the funds authorized under the
Act would not be susceptible to it.
While the Democratically-led Congress was undermining
integration efforts legislatively, successive Republican
presidential administrations took steps to limit federal
oversight of school desegregation. Additionally, federal judges
and Supreme Court justices appointed by Republican
administrations also significantly narrowed the application of
remedies to integrate public schools. The retreat began in
Milliken v. Bradley (1974) which held that school districts in
the suburbs of Detroit were not obligated to participate in
intra-district desegregation unless they committed a
constitutional violation, effectively ending state-ordered
regional desegregation across school district lines.\67\ In the
1990s, Supreme Court rulings in three cases reduced judicial
oversight of school desegregation orders, allowing school
districts to escape oversight.\68\ According to research, 45
percent of school districts were released from court ordered
desegregation orders between 1990-2009.\69\ And in 2007, in the
Parents Involved case the Roberts Court found the use of racial
balancing desegregation plans unconstitutional when used to
achieve racial diversity where de jure segregation does not
exist.\70\ Two school systems had developed voluntary school
desegregation plans, where race served as the basis of
assigning students to a particular school, in an effort to
achieve racial diversity.\71\ The Court held that since in one
district the schools were never legally segregated, and in the
other county the court ordered segregation consent decree had
been lifted, neither district had the compelling interest
necessary to implement such a race-based scheme.\72\ As such
the plans failed the strict scrutiny test and the use of race
violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.\73\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\67\418 U.S. 717, 721 (1974).
\68\Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell, 498 U.S. 237
(1991); Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467 (1992); Missouri v. Jenkins, 515
U.S. 79 (1995).
\69\Sean F. Reardon, et al., ``Brown Fades: The End of Court-
Ordered School Desegregation and the Resegregation of American Public
Schools.'' 31 J. of Pol'y Anal. & Mgmt. 876 (2012).
\70\551 U.S. 701 (2007).
\71\Id. at 710.
\72\Id. at 720-21.
\73\Id. at 730-33.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
But Parents Involved did not completely foreclose on the
use of race. Justice Kennedy broke with the four conservative
judges to clarify in his concurrence, that it is constitutional
for school districts to use race to promote school diversity, a
stance informed by Grutter.\74\ In his concurring opinion,
Justice Kennedy stated that the plurality opinion was
``profoundly mistaken'' to suggest that states and school
districts ``must accept the status quo of racial isolation in
schools.''\75\ Justice Kennedy decreed school integration
strategies such as drawing attendance zones and ``allocating
resources for special programs'' such as magnet schools to
promote diversity.\76\ These are the types of strategies H.R.
2639 aims to provide funding to support.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\74\Id. at 788 (Kennedy, J. concurring).
\75\Id.
\76\Id. at 789 (``. . . recruiting students and faculty in a
targeted fashion; and tracking enrollments, performance, and other
statistics by race. These mechanisms are race conscious but do not lead
to different treatment based on a classification that tells each
student he or she is to be defined by race . . .'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
These are also the same types of strategies the Obama
administration sought to promote with its ``Opening Doors,
Expanding Opportunities'' program. Introduced in 2016, this $12
million grant program was designed to help school districts
increase diversity in their schools.\77\ All school districts
that received or were eligible for ESEA School Improvement
Grants\78\ were eligible to apply for the grant, which was
designed to help school districts develop plans to improve
socioeconomic diversity and complete pre-implementation
diversity initiatives.\79\ Twenty-six school districts from 22
different states and the District of Columbia applied for the
funds, demonstrating a nationwide desire and commitment to
address segregation in schools.\80\ Under the Trump
Administration, the Department of Education discontinued this
program in 2017.\81\ Sadly although there was an outpouring of
support from school districts to voluntarily take on the work
of promoting integration in their schools, many were not able
to do so without the possibility of federal funding.\82\ The
choice to discontinue this program is especially disheartening
in the face of the research we have showing the regrowth of
segregated schools.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\77\Press Release, Department of Education, U.S. Education
Secretary Announces Grant Competitions to Encourage Diverse Schools,
(Dec. 13, 2016), available at https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/
us-education-secretary-announces-grant-competitions-encourage-diverse-
schools.
\78\Every Student Succeeds Act Sec. 1003(g), 20 U.S.C. Sec. 6303(g)
(2018).
\79\Applications for New Awards; Opening Doors, Expanding
Opportunities 81 Fed. Reg. 90343 (Dec. 14, 2016) available at https://
www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2016-12-14/pdf/2016-29936.pdf.
\80\List of Potential Applicants, Opening Doors, Expanding
Opportunities -Intent to Apply, available at https://www2.ed.gov/
programs/odeo/odeolistofapp2017.pdf.
\81\Emma Brown, ``Trump's Education department nixes Obama-era
grant program for school diversity'', Wash. Post Mar. 2, 2017,
available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2017/03/
29/trumps-education-department-nixes-obama-era-grant-program-for-
school-
diversity/.
\82\Kalyn Belsha, ``Dozens of school districts applied to an Obama-
era integration program before Trump officials axed it. Since then,
many plans have gone nowhere'', Chalkbeat Dec. 2, 2019, available at
https://chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/12/02/what-happened-after-trump-
administration-killed-obama-era-school-integration-program/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Research shows that the gains made on school integration in
the 1960s and 1970s have reversed as schools have become
increasingly segregated.\83\ The share of racially segregated
schools has tripled to nearly 20 percent since the 1980s.\84\
This finding indicates that nearly one in five schools in
America enroll 90-100% non-white students.\85\ 40 percent of
African American students and 41 percent of Latino students
nationwide attend these intensely segregated schools where
students of color makeup 90-100 percent of the student
population.\86\ The report also found that these schools had
fewer resources, less access to math, science, and college
preparatory courses, and disproportionately suspended,
expelled, or held back students.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\83\See Frankenberg, supra note 4, at 21-22.
\84\Id. at 21.
\85\Id.
\86\Id. at 25, 28.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A 2019 report by EdBuild found that school district
secessions to create wealthy white school districts are
accelerating.\87\ According to the report, there have been at
least 128 attempts by school districts to secede from their
larger school district since 2000, with a total of 73
successful secessions. Historically, after the Brown decision,
school district secessions were a mechanism for communities
within county-based school districts to resist integration.
Currently, 30 states have laws permitting secession and there
are states considering laws to permit secession. This action is
deeply troubling as it undermines the Brown decision and
exacerbates inequality and segregation, leaving high-poverty
school districts behind with fewer resources since public
education is largely funded using property tax revenue.
Further, school districts cannot be compelled to work with
other school districts to integrate. H.R. 2639 addresses the
problem of secession by allowing consortium of LEAs or regional
education entities to be eligible entities for purposes of the
grant. The goal is to ensure that where a secession has
occurred, or one may occur, steps could be taken using funds
from the bill to ensure racial diversity was maintained in
these instances.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\87\EdBuild, Fractured: The Accelerated Breakdown of America's
School Districts, EdBuild, Apr. 2019, available at https://edbuild.org/
content/fractured/fractured-full-report.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
EdBuild recently produced another report that found a $23
billion racial funding gap between school districts serving
students of color and school districts serving predominantly
white students.\88\ This data indicates that the relationship
between integration and resources is often overlooked but
cannot be overstated. Further, in 2017, the National Center on
Education Statistics issued a report that found that most Black
and Latino students in the 2014-2015 school year attended high-
poverty schools.\89\ Moreover, in 2018, Chairman Scott and
Chairman Nadler released a GAO report that found that African
American students, boys, and students with disabilities are
disproportionately disciplined at high rates and African
American students are subject to harsher discipline than their
white counterparts in schools across the country.\90\ This is
alarming given the dramatic increase in segregation in public
schools by race and poverty, especially as students of color
are more likely to experience harsh discipline.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\88\EdBuild, $23 Billion, (last visited Dec. 6, 2019), http://
edbuild.org/content/23-billion.
\89\Nat'l Ctr. For Educ. Stats., The Condition of Education 2017,
134 available at https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2017/2017144.pdf.
\90\U.S. Gov't Accountability Office, GAO-18-258, K-12 Education:
Discipline Disparities for Black Students, Boys, and Students with
Disabilities (2018).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sixty-five years after the landmark Brown v. Board of
Education decision, educational inequity remains pervasive and
persistent in the U.S. Like the Jim Crow education system,
children of color and low-income students are consigned to
learning in segregated schools with crumbling infrastructure
that offer demonstrably worse opportunity for a quality
education. As a result, millions of children are robbed of
their constitutionally guaranteed educational rights. As Dr.
Rucker Johnson recently stated, ``[s]segregation is not only
the isolation of schoolchildren from one another; it is the
hoarding of opportunity. Opportunity for smaller class sizes,
access to high quality teachers supported by higher teacher
salaries, teacher diversity, multicultural and college-
preparatory curricular access all remain elusive for lower-
income and minority children.''\91\ A profound question and
answer exchange during the April 30th Committee hearing on
fulfilling the Brown decision took place between Rep. Mark
Takano (CA-41) and Chancellor Carranza. Rep. Takano asked
Chancellor Carranza, ``[w]hat does it mean for children of
color who suffer the repercussions of widening achievement and
opportunity gaps?'' Mr. Carranza stated, ``[w]e are robbing the
very future of this country of future talent.'' This statement
fully encapsulates the cost of school segregation and the lack
of inaction by the federal government. The Committee believes
it is the role of the federal government and the duty of
Congress to address the segregation that exists in our public
education system today to ensure that all children have access
to an equal education regardless of their race, ethnicity,
family wealth, or zip code.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\91\Valerie Strauss, ``Why School Integration Works'', Wash. Post,
May 16 2019, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/
2019/05/16/why-school-integration-works/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
Congress must recommit to investing in school integration
to fulfill the promise of Brown. Approximately 200 school
districts remain under court-desegregation orders.\92\ But that
number is hardly reflective of how pervasive racial segregation
remains in public education. According to scholars at
Pennsylvania State University, there are more than 100 school
districts that have voluntary integration plans to promote
diversity.\93\ Their research shows that school districts are
experiencing multiple challenges defining diversity and
developing diversity and desegregation initiatives.\94\ H.R.
2639, the Strength in Diversity Act would provide much needed
support to these school districts. Under the bill, there are
mandatory application requirements to ensure funding is
targeted to improve school diversity. But the plans funded
under the bill could also include a comprehensive set of
strategies to improve student outcomes, evidence of family and
community engagement, goals to increase school diversity,
development of innovative and equitable school assignment
plans, and other strategies. The Secretary of Education is
required to establish performance measures to assess the
progress of outcomes and activities funded by the grants and
may set aside funding for research development and technical
assistance. The bill reinforces the notion that the federal
government is committed to supporting efforts to desegregate
our schools and level the educational playing field to ensure
equal access to education for all students.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\92\Jeremy Anderson & Erica Frankenberg, ``Voluntary Integration in
Uncertain Times'', Phi Delta Kappan, Jan. 21, 2019, available at
https://www.kappanonline.org/voluntary-integration-in-uncertain-times-
anderson-frankenberg/.
\93\Id.
\94\Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accordingly, the Strength in Diversity Act would provide
public school districts with the tools to support their
voluntary community-driven strategies for promoting racial and
socioeconomic diversity in schools. On April 30, 2018,
Chancellor Richard Carranza of New York City Department of
Education testified before the Committee about the diversity
efforts in School District 15 in Brooklyn, which is comprised
of 50 schools serving over 30,000 students. The community
engaged in a diversity planning process to address racial
isolation by studying data and research, including racial
housing segregation, school enrollment demographics, and
student academic outcomes. This process resulted in a
comprehensive plan to address school segregation that was
approved by Mayor DeBlasio and Chancellor Carranza. The
Strength in Diversity Act would provide support to school
districts in New York City and across the country that are
working to develop and implement school integration
initiatives.
Congress must act to support communities that are committed
to studying the scope of their challenges and tackling those
challenges with innovative, evidence-based plans to address
racial isolation in schools. The Strength in Diversity Act is a
small investment in the much larger fight to remedy decades of
purposeful inaction--including inaction by the federal
government--that intentionally segregated communities and
schools to deny people of color equal opportunity. There was a
federal role in the creation of school segregation, and there
is certainly a federal role in eradicating its hold in public
education.
Justice Kennedy provided a powerful goal for our country in
his concurring opinion in the 2007 Parents Involved decision:
Our Nation from the inception has sought to preserve
and expand the promise of liberty and equality on which
it was founded. Today we enjoy a society that is
remarkable in its openness and opportunity. Yet our
tradition is to go beyond present achievements, however
significant, and to recognize and confront the flaws
and injustices that remain. This is especially true
when we seek assurance that opportunity is not denied
on account of race. The enduring hope is that race
should not matter; the reality is that too often it
does.\95\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\95\Parents Involved in Cmty. Schs. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1,
551 U.S. 701, 787 (2007) (Kennedy, J., concurring).
Congress has the power and authority to challenge history
and help change it. History shows that when Congress accepts
its responsibility to desegregate schools, the closing of the
racial achievement gap is tangible. It is time for Congress to
recommit to investing in school integration to ensure the
constitutionally guaranteed educational rights of children of
color by passing the Strength in Diversity Act.
Section-by-Section Analysis
Section 1. Short title
This Act is called ``The Strength in Diversity Act of
2019.''
Section 2. Purpose
This section provides that the purpose of the Strength in
Diversity Act of 2019 is to support the development,
implementation, and evaluation of strategies to address the
effects of racial isolation or concentrated poverty by
increasing racial and socioeconomic diversity in public
schools.
Section 3. Reservation for national activities
This section allows the Secretary of Education to set aside
no more than 5 percent of funding for national activities. The
national activities include research, development, data
collection, monitoring, technical assistance, evaluation,
dissemination activities, and development and maintenance of
best practices on school diversity.
Section 4. Grant program authorized
This section provides detail on the two types of grants
authorized under the bill (planning and implementation),
criteria for evaluating applications, award priority, and
duration of grants, (one year for a planning grant and up to
three years for an implementation grant). Implementation grants
can be extended for an additional two years. Priority in
awarding is given to eligible entities that address racial
isolation in public schools.
Section 5. Applications
This section provides information for grant application
submissions to the Secretary of Education. Application
requirements include a description of the program, how the
grant will be used, outreach to parents and students in a
language that parents and students can understand, consultation
with students and families in the district or region targeted
for diversity improvement efforts, and how the eligible entity
will identify and define racial isolation, income level, and
socioeconomic status.
Section 6. Uses of funds
This section provides further detail on planning and
implementation grant funds may be spent. Under the act,
planning grants will be used to create a comprehensive
assessment of the geographic area served and to develop a
robust family, student, and community engagement plan.
Implementation grants will apply the high-quality plan, which
will include a comprehensive set of strategies to: improve
student outcomes; evidence of family and community engagement,
goals to increase school diversity, development of innovative
and equitable school assignment plans, collection and analysis
of data, and a rigorous method of evaluation of the
effectiveness of the program. Implementation grant funding can
be used to recruit, hire, and train teachers and other
innovative activities designed to increase racial and
socioeconomic diversity and engagement among students from
different, racial, economic, and cultural backgrounds. Grant
funding also supports school districts under a court-ordered
school desegregation plan.
Section 7. Performance measures
This section provides information on performance measures
for the programs and activities carried out through use of the
grants. These performance measures include but are not limited
to academic performance, school readiness, achievement gaps,
graduation rates, reducing school discipline rates, and post-
secondary career readiness.
Section 8. Annual reports
This section provides that entities that receive a grant
will submit a report to the Secretary of Education with a
description of the efforts to increase inclusivity and
information on the progress of the grant in respect to
performance measures and data to support said progress.
Section 9. Applicability
This section specifies that Section 426 of the General
Education Provisions Act (GEPA) does not apply to funding
authorized in the bill.
Section 10. Authorization of appropriations
This section provides that the program is to be funded for
fiscal year 2020 and for five succeeding fiscal years.
Section 11. Definitions
Provides definitions found within the bill.
Explanation of Amendments
The ANS is explained in other descriptive portions of this
report.
Application of Law to the Legislative Branch
H.R. 2639 does not apply to terms and conditions of
employment or to access to public services or accommodations
within the legislative branch.
Unfunded Mandate Statement
Pursuant to Section 423 of the Congressional Budget and
Impoundment Control Act (as amended by Section 101(a)(2) of the
Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, Pub. L. 104-4), the Committee
adopts as its own the estimate of federal mandates regarding
H.R. 2639, as amended, prepared by the Director of the
Congressional Budget Office.
Earmark Statement
In accordance with clause 9 of rule XXI of the Rules of the
House of Representatives, H.R. 2639 does not contain any
congressional earmarks, limited tax benefits, or limited tariff
benefits as described in clauses 9(e), 9(f), and 9(g) of rule
XXI.
Roll Call Votes
In compliance with clause 3(b) of rule XIII of the Rules of
the House of Representatives, the Committee advises that the
following roll call vote occurred during the Committee's
consideration of H.R. 2639.
{GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT}
Statement of Performance Goals and Objectives
Pursuant to clause (3)(c) of rule XIII of the Rules of the
House of Representatives, the goals of H.R. 2639 are to support
the development, implementation, and evaluation of strategies
to address the effects of racial isolation or concentrated
poverty by increasing racial and socioeconomic diversity in
public schools.
Duplication of Federal Programs
Pursuant to clause 3(c)(5) of rule XIII of the Rules of the
House of Representatives, the Committee states that no
provision of H.R. 2639 establishes or reauthorizes a program of
the Federal Government known to be duplicative of another
federal program, a program that was included in any report from
the Government Accountability Office to Congress pursuant to
section 21 of Public Law 111-139, or a program related to a
program identified in the most recent Catalog of Federal
Domestic Assistance.
Hearings
For the purposes of Section 103(i) of H. Res. 6 for the
116th Congress, the legislative hearing titled ``Brown v. Board
of Education at 65: A Promise Unfulfilled,'' held of April 30,
2019 was used to inform the development of H.R. 2639.
Statement of Oversight Findings and Recommendations of the Committee
In compliance with Clause 3(c)(1) of rule XIII and Clause
2(b)(1) of rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives,
the Committee's oversight findings and recommendations are
reflected in the descriptive portions of this report.
New Budget Authority and CBO Cost Estimate
Pursuant to Clause 3(c)(2) of rule XIII of the Rules of the
House of Representatives and Section 308(a) of the
Congressional Budget Act of 1974, and pursuant to clause
3(c)(3) of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of
Representatives and Section 402 of the Congressional Budget Act
of 1974, the Committee has received the following estimate for
H.R. 2639 from the Director of the Congressional Budget Office:
U.S. Congress,
Congressional Budget Office,
Washington, DC, June 4, 2019.
Hon. Bobby Scott,
Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office has
prepared the enclosed cost estimate for H.R. 2639, the Strength
in Diversity Act of 2019.
If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be
pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contact is Leah
Koestner.
Sincerely,
Phillip L. Swagel,
Director.
Enclosure.
{GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT}
H.R. 2639 would authorize the appropriation of whatever
amounts are necessary through 2025 for the Department of
Education to operate a grant program for eligible entities to
develop or implement plans to improve diversity, and to reduce
or eliminate racial or socioeconomic isolation in schools. That
authorization would be extended through 2026 under the General
Education Provisions Act.
Because of the program's similarities to the grant program
called Opening Doors, Expanding Opportunities, which provided
$12 million for similar purposes in fiscal year 2017, CBO
estimates the bill would authorize the appropriation of $12
million in fiscal year 2020. After accounting for anticipated
inflation, CBO estimates that amount would be $14 million in
2026. Based on historical spending patterns of similar
programs, and assuming appropriation of the estimated amounts,
CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 2639 would cost $48
million over the 2019-2024 period and $89 million over the
2019-2029 period.
The estimated budgetary effect of H.R. 2639 is shown in
Table 1. The costs of the legislation fall within budget
function 500 (education, training, employment, and social
services).
TABLE 1.--ESTIMATED INCREASES IN SPENDING SUBJECT TO APPROPRIATION UNDER H.R. 2639
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By fiscal year, millions of dollars--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2019-2024 2019-2029
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Estimated Authorization.............................. 0 12 12 12 13 13 13 14 0 0 0 62 89
Estimated Outlays.................................... 0 1 6 15 13 13 13 13 11 4 1 48 89
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Leah Koestner.
The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy
Assistant Director for Budget Analysis.
Committee Cost Estimate
Clause 3(d)(1) of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of
Representatives requires an estimate and a comparison of the
costs that would be incurred in carrying out H.R. 2639.
However, Clause 3(d)(2)(B) of that rule provides that this
requirement does not apply when the committee has included in
its report a timely submitted cost estimate of the bill
prepared by the Director of the Congressional Budget Office
under section 402 of the Congressional Budget Act.
Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill, as Reported
In compliance with Clause 3(e) of rule XIII of the Rules of
the House of Representatives, in H.R. 2639, as reported, makes
no changes to existing law.
MINORITY VIEWS
Introduction
In 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the unanimous
Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education (Brown) that,
``[Education], where the state has undertaken to provide it, is
a right which must be made available to all on equal
terms.''\1\ This was a long-overdue and welcomed acknowledgment
that separate is not, and can never be, equal. Discrimination
and segregation are repugnant, illegal, and blatantly immoral.
Unfortunately, while segregation is gone from our laws, its
lingering effects are not. We know that too many students
attend racially and economically isolated schools\2\ and that
better integrated schools have academic benefits for all
students.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Page
493.
\2\``Better Use of Information Could Help Agencies Identify
Disparities and Address Racial Discrimination.'' U.S. Government
Accountability Office. May 17, 2016. https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-
16-345
\3\Ayscue, Jennifer, et. al. Research Brief: The Complementary
Benefits of Racial and Socioeconomic Diversity in Schools. The National
Coalition on School Diversity. March 2017. https://school-
diversity.org/pdf/DiversityResearchBriefNo10.pdf
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Committee Consideration of H.R. 2639--Bipartisan Opportunity Lost
On May 16, 2019, the House Committee on Education and Labor
met to mark up H.R. 2639. Because Republicans and Democrats
largely agree on the importance of integrated schools, this
topic afforded the Committee an opportunity to work across the
aisle to find bipartisan compromise. Unfortunately, the
majority took a different approach.
H.R. 2639 authorizes a new grant program within the
Department of Education (ED) for ``the development,
implementation, and evaluation of comprehensive strategies to
address the effects of racial isolation or concentrated poverty
. . .''\4\ Committee Republicans support this goal.
Unfortunately, Democrats are pursuing it in a way sure to add
to the federal government's long list of broken promises.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\H.R. 2639, the Strength in Diversity Act of 2019. Section 2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1975, Congress enacted the predecessor to the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). In that
law, Congress promised a maximum grant to every state equal to
40 percent of the national average per-pupil expenditure
(APPE). When Republicans took over the House in 1995 for the
first time in more than 40 years, and nearly 20 years after
IDEA was originally enacted, the federal government was funding
IDEA at 8 percent of the national APPE and Republicans more
than doubled that contribution. When Democrats regained the
majority in 2007, the federal government was funding IDEA at 17
percent of the national APPE. Unfortunately, the federal
government's contribution has steadily declined since then. In
fiscal year (FY) 2020 the federal government is funding IDEA at
about 13 percent of the national APPE.
Funding progress on this core program has stalled because
Democrats have pursued other agendas. For example, in FYs 2012
and 2013, Republicans controlled the House, but Democrats
controlled the Senate and the White House. In FY 2012, IDEA was
funded at $11.578 billion. The Republican House proposal for FY
2013 was $12.078 billion while President Obama proposed flat
funding and Senate Democrats proposed a modest increase to
$11.678 billion. The President's level-funding proposal was
enacted.
Where did funding increases for ED go? Among other places,
Democrats in Congress and the White House spent nearly $6
billion on Race to the Top, a program used to coerce states
into sweeping policy changes, but which provided actual funding
to only a lucky few school districts nationwide. Republicans
have consistently prioritized IDEA while Democrats have
shortchanged this core program to fund their own initiatives.
Now here we are again. The Democrats are advancing H.R.
2639, yet another federal program sure to be underfunded while
existing priorities continue to be ignored. Rep. Rick Allen (R-
GA) offered a better way to address the issue in Committee
Republicans' substitute amendment to the bill. Rep. Allen's
substitute would have expanded the Student Support and Academic
Enrichment Grants (SSAEG) in the Every Student Succeeds Act to
allow school districts to use funds to reduce or eliminate
racial or socioeconomic isolation in schools. The SSAEG were
authorized on a bipartisan basis to give school districts
significant resources to address local needs and received $1.21
billion in FY 2020 appropriated funding.
Committee Republicans offered Democrats an easy bipartisan
victory. The Committee could have adopted Rep. Allen's
substitute amendment to ensure that school districts have
federal funds available for school diversity efforts. Instead,
they opted to pass a partisan bill that will only add to the
federal government's long list of broken promises.
Fulfilling the Promise of Brown--Expanding Opportunity
While there is significant alignment between Committee
Democrats' and Committee Republicans' goals with respect to
H.R. 2639, Committee Republicans also believe expanding
opportunities for students should be a priority. School choice
gives families the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty
and enroll their children in challenging environments that
better develops their skills and intellects, encouraging them
to reach higher. Studies show that when students are given the
freedom to attend school in a learning environment best suited
to their abilities, they pursue and complete postsecondary
opportunities at higher rates.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\Chingos, Matthew, et. al. ``The Effects of the Florida Tax
Credit Scholarship Program on College Enrollment and Graduation.''
February 2019. https://www.urban.org/research/publication/
effects-florida-tax-credit-scholarship-program-college-enrollment-and-
graduation?utm_source=
urban_EA&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=florida_school_choice&utm_term=ed
u&
utm_content=r.
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In April 2019, the Committee held a hearing examining the
legacy of Brown as its 65th anniversary approached. Virginia
Walden Ford, a parent who advocates for more educational
freedom for families wrote to the Committee and said:
The same schools that we fought hard to get into in
the 1960's after the [Brown] decision have become the
schools we must diligently find a way to get minority
children out of. These schools and programs that our
children are now forced to attend are creating
environments where our kids cannot get the education
they deserve.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\Ford, Virginia Walden. Letter to the Committee on Education and
Labor. April 27, 2019.
Loisa Maritza White, another parent advocate, testified to
the Committee about her family's use of the DC Opportunity
Scholarship Program and the importance of school choice. She
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
said:
Each family has the right to decide what education
works best for their individual child(ren) . . . No,
indeed, [the Brown] mandate has NOT been fulfilled in
the last 65 years. But school choice is a step in the
right direction in reaching the mandated outcome.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\White, Loisa Maritza. Testimony Before the Committee on
Education and Labor. April 30, 2019.
Committee Republicans stand ready to work with our
colleagues in the majority to expand educational opportunities
to families. Brown prohibited the state from assigning students
to schools based on race. We should take the next step and
eliminate the right of the state to trap children in low-
performing schools with no means of escape.
Conclusion
As outlined in these Minority Views, H.R. 2639 is a lost
opportunity. Bipartisan compromise was possible to advance the
shared goals of addressing the effects of racial and
socioeconomic isolation in education. Unfortunately, Committee
Democrats chose a partisan path. Additionally, Committee
Republicans believe no effort to erase the evil legacy of
segregation and discrimination can be complete without
eliminating the state's ability to trap students in low-
performing schools. We invite Democrats to listen to parents
desperate for better educational options for their children.
Virginia Foxx,
Ranking Member.
David P. Roe, M.D.
Glenn ``GT'' Thompson.
Tim Walberg.
Brett Guthrie.
Bradley Byrne.
Glenn Grothman.
Rick W. Allen.
Jim Banks.
Mark Walker.
James Comer.
Ben Cline.
Russ Fulcher.
Daniel Meuser.
Dusty Johnson.
Fred Keller.
Gregory F. Murphy.
Jefferson Van Drew.
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