Five Miles Away, A World Apart One City, Two Schools, and the Story of Educational Opportunity in Modern America

InFive Miles Away, A World Apart, James E. Ryan paints a disturbing portrait of educational opportunity by tracing the fortunes of two schools in Richmond, Virginia--one in the city and the other in the suburbs. Ryan shows how court rulings in the 1970s, limiting the scope of desegregation, laid the groundwork for the sharp disparities between urban and suburban public schools that persist to this day. The Supreme Court, in accord with the wishes of the Nixon administration, allowed the suburbs to lock nonresidents out of their school systems. City schools, whose student bodies were becoming increasingly poor and black, simply received more funding, a measure that has proven largely ineffective, while the independence (and superiority) of suburban schools remained sacrosanct. Weaving together court opinions, social science research, and compelling interviews with students, teachers, and principals, Ryan explains why the major education reforms since the 1970s--including school finance litigation, school choice, and the No Child Left Behind Act--have failed to bridge the gap between urban and suburban schools and have entrenched segregation by race and class. As long as that segregation continues, Ryan argues, so too will educational inequality. Ryan closes by suggesting innovative ways to promote school integration, which take advantage of unprecedented demographic shifts and an embrace of diversity among young adults.

James E. Ryan is William L Matheson Robert M. Morgenthau Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He is a former clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist.