Editing Desegregation busing (section)

=== Wilmington, Delaware ===
In [[Wilmington, Delaware|Wilmington]], Delaware, located in [[New Castle County, Delaware|New Castle County]], segregated schools were required by law until 1954, when, due to ''[[Belton v. Gebhart]]'' (which was later rolled into ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' on appeal), the school system was forced to desegregate. As a result, the school districts in the Wilmington metropolitan area were split into eleven districts covering the metropolitan area (Alfred I. duPont, Alexis I. duPont, Claymont, Conrad, De La Warr, Marshallton-McKean, Mount Pleasant, New Castle-Gunning Bedford, Newark, Stanton, and Wilmington school districts). However, this reorganization did little to address the issue of segregation, since the Wilmington schools (Wilmington and De La Warr districts) remained predominantly black, while the suburban schools in the county outside the city limits remained predominantly white.

In 1976, the U.S. District Court, in ''Evans v. Buchanan'', ordered that the school districts of New Castle County all be combined into a single district governed by the New Castle County Board of Education.<ref>Samuel B. Hoff, "{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20081120120812/http://www.iccjournal.biz/Scholarly_Articles/Hoff,%20S/DelawareEducationandDesegregation.htm Delaware's Constitution and Its Impact on Education]}}"</ref> The District Court ordered the Board to implement a desegregation plan in which the students from the predominantly black Wilmington and De La Warr districts were required to attend school in the predominantly white suburb districts, while students from the predominantly white districts were required to attend school in Wilmington or De La Warr districts for three years (usually 4th through 6th grade). In many cases, this required students to be bused a considerable distance (12–18 miles in the [[Christina School District]]) because of the distance between Wilmington and some of the major communities of the suburban area (such as [[Newark, Delaware|Newark]]).

However, the process of handling an entire metropolitan area as a single school district resulted in a revision to the plan in 1981, in which the New Castle County schools were again divided into four separate districts ([[Brandywine School District|Brandywine]], [[Christina School District|Christina]], [[Colonial School District (Delaware)|Colonial]], and [[Red Clay School District|Red Clay]]).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.iccjournal.biz/Scholarly_Articles/Hoff,%20S/DelawareEducationandDesegregation.htm |title=iccjournal.biz |access-date=2007-09-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081120120812/http://www.iccjournal.biz/Scholarly_Articles/Hoff,%20S/DelawareEducationandDesegregation.htm |archive-date=2008-11-20 |url-status=usurped}}</ref> However, unlike the 1954 districts, each of these districts was racially balanced and encompassed inner city and suburban areas. Each of the districts continued a desegregation plan based upon busing.

The requirements for maintaining racial balance in the schools of each of the districts was ended by the District Court in 1994, but the process of busing students to and from the suburbs for schooling continued largely unchanged until 2001, when the Delaware state government passed House Bill 300, mandating that the districts convert to sending students to the schools closest to them, a process that continues {{As of|2007|lc=on}}. In the 1990s, Delaware schools would utilize the Choice program, which would allow children to apply to schools in other school districts based on space.

Wilmington High, which, many felt, was a victim of the busing order, closed in 1998 due to dropping enrollment. The campus would become home to [[Cab Calloway School of the Arts]], a magnet school focused on the arts that was established in 1992. It would also house [[Charter School of Wilmington]], which focuses on math and science, and opened up in 1996.

Delaware currently has some of the highest rates in the nation of children who attend private schools, magnet schools, and charter schools, due to the perceived weaknesses of the public school system.{{citation needed|date=June 2014}}