Levels of school segregation are approaching what they were in the immediate aftermath of Brown v. Board of Ed. in 1954. Massive expansions of public school systems, alongside President Johnson’s Great Society programs, huge changes in curriculum and pedagogy, additional academic research outlining the scope of the problem, lawsuits demanding desegregation, attempts at busing, and more have still not addressed the issue. In fact, school segregation is getting worse.

The numbers are depressing, the prospects grim. But there is a way forward to desegregate American schools — one that differs from those most commonly offered in the last sixty years.

Arguments for integration have emphasized inclusion and multiculturalism. Often these arguments have also taken up a “zero-sum” framework in which demands are made to redistribute existing resources from predominantly middle-class, white communities towards poorer communities of color.