In the most recent episode of This American Life, Nikole Hannah-Jones tells the story of a school district that accidentally launched a desegregation program.

The school district is in Normandy, Missouri, which is right next to Ferguson, Missouri, and includes the high school that Michael Brown attended.

In an Education Next forum published in 2010, two experts on desegregation considered whether desegregation efforts have fulfilled their promise and what role desegregation should play today.

Susan Eaton, research director at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, made the case for refocusing school reform on creating integrated schools.

Steven Rivkin, professor of economics at Amherst College, questioned a focus on desegregation and pointed out complexities to the issue that researchers have barely begun to examine.

– Education Next