 | | A bus full of students arrived at the McLean School in Boston, in 1971. Sam Masotta/The Boston Globe, via Getty Images | |
| No one could have anticipated that one of the most striking moments of the second Democratic debate would be about busing. But the practice, at the center of a heated exchange between Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Kamala Harris, has been a sore subject for decades. |
| For some, busing was a lifeline, a policy that profoundly changed their future by creating more opportunity. Others have called it counterproductive, heavy handed and an unfortunate mistake. |
| "I cannot say that the bus experience helped me to thrive because I always embraced education," wrote Gina Thomas, a reader from Dallas. "Instead of providing a robust education in my own community, I had to get up early to catch a bus to another part of town," she continued. Ms. Thomas, who is black, said her "contention with busing is the fact that all schools curriculums are not created equally." |
| Another reader, R. Darrell Meadows, grew up in Oklahoma City. Mr. Meadows, who is of Hispanic heritage, wrote that he was bused from a predominantly white, working-class neighborhood to attend integrated schools across town, and that he is now "keenly aware of the ways my experience of busing irrevocably and positively shaped my perspective on the world by facilitating a greater diversity of childhood friendships." |
| Across the country, many Americans have argued that busing students to integrate schools was a failure, but research shows that integration measures like busing, when fully implemented, proved an effective tool in closing the achievement gap and building understanding across lines of race and class. |
| Today, desegregation efforts have gone beyond court-ordered busing to include a variety of methods, ones not necessarily mandated by law. We want to hear from you. Do you or your children have experience being transported to a school as part of integration efforts, either in the past or today — voluntarily or by court order? |
| How has that experience changed your life? Email us your thoughts at racerelated@nytimes.com. Your response may be published in an upcoming story. |
