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How did Integration Efforts Fall Apart in Delaware?

Today, Delaware schools are resegregating. While the practice of officially keeping Black students from the better funded schools, like the practice of redlining, is illegal, without permanent and vigorous safeguards against de facto segregation Delaware schools have declined into a familiar divide. Today’s segregation is not solely a racial one, it is an economic one too. As busing devolved into school choice systems, students and families have had to navigate a chaotic and confusing system. Those without the time or ability to do so are often left behind. How did one of the most effective integration plans in the United States fall apart?     


In 1978, the 9-3 plan took effect. Intended to ensure equality and quality in the various schools of New Castle County, this plan bused students to suburban schools and into Wilmington for 9 and 3 years of education respectively. While this busing was vigorously opposed by many vocal protesters, it was overall both peaceful and successful. During this time Delaware had one of the most integrated systems of public schools in the country. However, issues like long bus rides (over an hour in some cases) led to individual dissatisfaction of mostly White and wealthy families who left public schools and enrolled in private and parochial ones. 


During the same period, the New Castle County school district, one of the largest in the country in 1978, proved too large and unwieldy to be run effectively. A teacher strike in 1981 ended with a new plan to divide the district into four, Colonial, Christina, Red Clay, and Brandywine. Wilmington was carved up with each district taking a piece of the city and combining it with the surrounding suburbs. The Christina school district was particularly egregious as it was not geographically contiguous with its section of Wilmington, the most economically disadvantaged of the four portions. Christina also contains Newark, the third most populous city in Delaware. Students from the most economically disadvantaged area of Wilmington had to travel the furthest to an already over-taxed district.  



The late 1980s saw a steady decline of attendance, and with it quality, in New Castle Public Schools, particularly in Wilmington. This led to further pushes from families to have a more active choice in school. The Delaware School Choice Program, combined with legislation allowing for charter schools in 1995, created a program that allows for students to select and attend any school that has room. The effect that charter schools had on Wilmington Public School is most dramatic in the 1998 closing of Wilmington High, the last traditional public high school in the city. In that same year, the building reopened as a shared building between Wilmington Charter and Cab Calloway School of the Arts.


The ending of court oversight in 1995 suggests the real progress that was made in integration in Delaware. After all, the declaration of Delaware school districts as “unitary” was correct. It is a cruel irony then that this event that highlights the success of past policies is the harbinger of an absence of policy and action. In the last 20 years, there have been at least 5 task forces, committees, and initiatives meant to reform education but only one has resulted in action. The fact that Wilmington is overseen by 22 separate educational entities certainly contributes to the lack of action. Without a strong central plan in place, the last 25 years of Delaware education has been a predictable disintegration.  


In our next piece, we will take a more in depth look at how charter schools have grown and how they in particular contribute to school segregation. 


Read our previous piece on Delaware's response to Brown v. Board of Education. 

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