Education: Back-to-School Blues

After busing—bankruptcy and strikes

There was picketing over school integration in Chicago's blue-collar Marquette Park area. In Louisville, a group of ingenious parents attempted, without success, to have their children reclassified as American Indians, because in Kentucky all nonblack minorities are exempt from forced busing. And in several cities, including Cleveland, racial calm existed because busing has still to be tried.

Even so, for the first time in years, rage and threatened riot over busing did not noticeably disrupt the opening of school. Instead there were a rash of teachers' strikes, prospects of bankruptcy...