Article 10: Disproportionate Burden: Consolidation and Educational Equity in the City Schools of Warren, Ohio, 1978-2011

Over the past five decades, U.S. policymakers have rationalized school consolidation as a vehicle of educational equity. Nevertheless, educators, parents, and community leaders remain divided regarding its impact on low-income, minority student populations; and critics have observed that school consolidation based on the premise of educational equity has often resulted in upheaval for minority and economically disadvantaged children, their families, and their communities (Noblit and Mendez 2008).

Moreover, Derrick Bell Jr. (1980) and Christine Rossell (1995) have argued that efforts to implement school desegregation are generally undertaken because they overlap with the interests of privileged white populations. To shed light on this topic, this article describes consolidation efforts that were implemented in the public schools of Warren, Ohio, between 1978 and 2011. While school consolidation in the Warren City Schools was rationalized as an attempt to eliminate de facto desegregation and promote educational equity, the initial consolidation plans were reactions to dwindling enrollments and budgetary shortfalls following widespread deindustrialization. Compelling evidence from this period also suggests that local educational leaders believed consolidation, through the implementation of a desegregation plan, would result in substantial federal funding for their district. Within the City of Warren, the evidence shows that subsequent consolidation efforts placed a disproportionate burden on low-income, minority students, who were more likely to be displaced and/or to lose their neighborhood schools: an outcome that undermines claims that consolidation promotes educational equity. The inequity involved in consolidation within Warren City Schools developed through political and educational leaders’ tendency to acquiesce to the schooling demands of economically advantaged families and their communities.