Response: Is School Integration Essential in order to Ensure a Good Education?

When asked to argue that school integration is not essential to a quality education, my immediate reaction was that this would be a challenge because I would be arguing against my opinion. However, upon thinking more about the question I realized that it was a bit more complex than just asking if we were pro-integration or anti-integration. Of course I did not want to argue for a side that was anti-integration, but during the debate I realized that that was much too definitive of a description. Without question, I believe that integration in schools is ideal and correct and important, but whether it is essential for a good education is a little bit more tricky. First of all, it depends on how you define a "good education." For me, it is composed of sufficient academic and social skills, as well as a diverse curriculum. So yes, integration is essential to meet those standards. But other people could define a good education as purely an academic sufficiency, in which case integration is not essential. After the debate, I came to the conclusion that I think that integration in schools is definitely a better model because it is important to expose children to difference in race, culture, gender, and socioeconomic class in a world that is so global and integrated. However, there are a few examples of schools that prove that integration is not absolutely essential, such as Spelman college, a historically Black liberal arts college, or Barnard, a women-only college (in this case it is segregation of gender and not race). Both schools ensure great educations, and were built in order to provide a specific group of people the liberties that they did not have at the time (quality education for Blacks and women). In those cases, integration is not the determining factor of a good education.