The Choice is Yours in the Twin Cities- Part 1
“The Choice is Yours in the Twin Cities Region: Using School and Housing Choice to Achieve Integration� outlines the fact that many of the Minneapolis Public Schools were very segregated (over 80% non-white students). By 2003, nearly half of the schools were considered segregated. Many people feel that it is detrimental to students to be in such a segregated environment, and that students are much more successful in a culturally diverse environment. After the NAACP and Xiong vs. State of Minnesota, The Choice is Yours programs were created to create a more diverse environment for both suburban and inner-city schools. Since then, students from inner city Minneapolis schools have been enrolling in suburban schools in order to desegregate schools all over the Twin Cities area. Local suburban schools such as Richfield, Edina, Columbia Heights, St. Anthony, Hopkins, St. Louis Park, Robbinsdale, Eden Prairie and Wayzata are currently enrolling students for the CIY program. Students that participate in the CIY program have shown significant academic improvements, about a third higher in reading and math than non-CIY students. Not only are students more successful as a result of the program, students and parents seem to like the program. 97% of participants and their parents said that they would recommend the program to a friend. CIY students felt that the suburban schools took their education more seriously and they were less distracted by the “bad� kids. The only negative comment was that they felt that CIY students were subject to harsher discipline for misbehavior that those who were originally enrolled at the suburban schools. For the 2005-06 school year, over 3,500 students were enrolled in the CIY program. According to the article, the positives of the program have far outweighed the negatives in the past few years and it has become one of the most successful de-segregation programs in the country.