Editing Desegregation busing (section)

== Criticism ==
===Popular opinion===
Support for the practice is influenced by the methodology of the study conducted. In a [[Gallup poll]] taken in 1973, very low percentages of whites (4 percent) and blacks (9 percent) supported busing outside of local neighborhoods, even though majorities were in favour of other desegregation methods such as redrawing school district boundaries and building low-income housing in middle-income areas.<ref name="'70s 252" /> However, a longitudinal study has shown that support for desegregation busing among black respondents has only dropped below 50% once from 1972 to 1976 while support among white respondents has steadily increased.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}} This increased support may be due to the diminished impact of desegregation policies over time.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Woodward |first=Jennifer R. |date=Winter 2011 |title=How Busing Burdened Blacks: Critical Race Theory and Busing for Desegregation in Nashville-Davidson County |journal=The Journal of Negro Education |volume=80 |issue=1 |pages=22–32 |jstor=41341103}}</ref> A 1978 study by the [[RAND Corporation]] set out to find why whites were opposed to busing and concluded that it was because they believed it destroyed neighborhood schools and camaraderie and increased discipline problems.<ref name="'70s 252" /> It is said that busing eroded the community pride and support that neighborhoods had for their local schools.<ref name="'70s 252" /> After busing, 60 percent of Boston parents, both black and white, reported more discipline problems in schools.<ref name="'70s 252" /> Black children were more likely to be bused than whites, and some black parents saw it as discrimination that uprooted their children from their communities.<ref name="'70s 252" /> Politicians and judges who supported busing were seen as hypocrites, as many sent their own children to private school.<ref name="'70s 252" />  In the [[1968 United States presidential election|1968]], [[1972 United States presidential election|1972]], and [[1976 United States presidential election|1976]] presidential elections, candidates opposed to busing were elected each time, and Congress voted repeatedly to end court-mandated busing.<ref name="'70s 265">{{cite book |title=How We Got Here: The '70s |last=Frum |first=David |author-link=David Frum |year=2000 |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-465-04195-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum/page/265 265] |url=https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum/page/265}}</ref>

Ultimately, many black leaders, from [[Wisconsin]] State Rep. [[Annette Polly Williams]], a Milwaukee Democrat, to [[Cleveland]] Mayor [[Michael R. White (politician)|Michael R. White]] led efforts to end busing.<ref name="QuickFacts">"[https://web.archive.org/web/20190212133112/http://www.adversity.net/education_2_north_carolina.htm]", ''[[Adversity.net]].'' Retrieved on August 5, 2020.</ref>

===White flight and private schools===
Busing is claimed to have accelerated a trend of middle-class relocation to the suburbs of metropolitan areas.<ref name="'70s 252" /> Many opponents of busing claimed the existence of "[[white flight]]" based on the court decisions to integrate schools.<ref name="'70s 252" /> Such stresses led white middle-class families in many communities to desert the public schools and create a network of private schools.<ref name="'70s 252" />

During the 1970s, ''[[60 Minutes]]'' reported that some members of Congress, government, and the press who supported busing most vociferously sent their own children to private schools, including Senator [[Ted Kennedy]], [[George McGovern]], [[Thurgood Marshall]], [[Phil Hart]], [[Ben Bradlee]], Senator [[Birch Bayh]], [[Tom Wicker]], [[Philip Geyelin]], and [[Donald M. Fraser|Donald Fraser]].<ref name="'70s 252" /> Many of the judges who ordered busing also sent their children to private schools.<ref name="'70s 252" />

===Distance===
Some critics of busing cited increases in distance to schools. However, segregation of schools often entailed far more distant busing. For example, in Tampa, Florida, the longest bus ride was {{convert|9|mi}} under desegregation whereas it was {{convert|25|mi}} during segregation.<ref>{{cite book |last=Harvey |first=Gordon E. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/995305085 |title=The politics of trust : Reubin Askew and Florida in the 1970s |isbn=978-0-8173-8888-1 |pages=58 |oclc=995305085}}</ref>

===Effect on already-integrated schools===
Critics point out that children in the Northeast were often bused from integrated schools to less integrated schools.<ref name="'70s 252" /> The percentage of Northeastern black children who attended a predominantly black school increased from 67 percent in 1968 to 80 percent in 1980 (a higher percentage than in 1954).<ref name="'70s 252" />

===Effect on academic performance===
In 1978, a proponent of busing, Nancy St. John, studied 100 cases of urban busing from the North and did not find what she had been looking for;<ref name="'70s 252" /> she found no cases in which significant black academic improvement occurred, but many cases where race relations suffered due to busing, as those in forced-integrated schools had worse relations with those of the opposite race than those in non-integrated schools.<ref name="'70s 252" /> Researcher David Armour, also looking for hopeful signs, found that busing "heightens racial identity" and "reduces opportunities for actual contact between the races".<ref name="'70s 252" />
A 1992 study led by [[Harvard University]] [[Gary Orfield|Professor Gary Orfield]], who supports busing, found black and Hispanic students lacked "even modest overall improvement" as a result of court-ordered busing.<ref name="Status of School Desegregation">{{cite book |title=Status of School Desegregation: The Next Generation |last=Orfield |first=Gary |author-link= Gary Orfield |author2=Franklin Monfort |year=1992 |publisher=National School Boards Association |location=Alexandria, VA |isbn=978-0-88364-174-3}}</ref>

Economist [[Thomas Sowell]] wrote that the stated premise for school busing was flawed, as ''de facto'' racial segregation in schools did not necessarily lead to poor education for black students.<ref>'When Chief Justice Warren said that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," he was within walking distance of an all-black public high school that sent a higher percentage of its graduates on to college than any white public high school in Washington. As far back as 1899, that school's students scored higher on tests than two of the city's three white academic public high schools.'Thomas Sowell (June 30, 2015) [http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell063015.php3 Supreme Court Disasters], Jewish World Review. Retrieved 22 September 2019</ref>