How much value do you place on the national research on the benefits of maintaining socioeconomically diverse schools?

As noted in today's article, the importance of the social science research was a dividing point at Tuesday's forum between Richard Kahlenberg and Abigail Thernstrom. Kahlenberg, senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a liberal think tank, repeatedly pointed to what he called "dozens of studies" extolling the benefits of integration and the downsides of high-poverty schools.

"Let me begin with the four decades of research which suggests that having separate schools for low-income and middle class students will never provide genuine equal opportunity," Kahlenberg said.

CORRECTED THERNSTROM'S REFERENCE ON WHO GAMED THE SYSTEM IN TEXAS AND ADDED LINK AT END OF POST TO VIEW THE FORUM

You might want to pencil into your schedule what could be an interesting discussion on Tuesday about the Wake County school diversity controversy.

The John Locke Foundation and the Campbell Law School Federalist Society have invited two nationally known speakers  for a lunchtime discussion on "Neighborhood Schools, Diversity, and the Wake County Controversy." It's at 11:45 a.m. at Campbell University Law School, 225 Hillsborough St. in downtown Raleigh.

One of the speakers is pretty well known in Wake. Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the progressive Century Foundation, will presumably be making his pitch for socioeconomic integration of schools.