I was sometimes bussed, sometimes others were bussed to my school. It depended on which school. (I was in two districts between 3rd and 9th grade, but I attended 5 different schools, just due to grade divisions and changes.) Even when bussing was an option (Yuma), I tended to walk/bike because I liked it and I got mocked for practicing my instrument at home, so I preferred to get to school when my orchestra teacher arrived and practice for an hour before school. (Remember, parents are assholes.) Yuma then was a fairly compact town, so travel wasn’t the prohibitive factor for anyone to have attended any of the schools.
Never lived in Texas. Not planning on it - I like snow. I’ve only got significant time in Indiana, Colorado, California and Arizona to go on, but my experiences in CA and CO align with yours in Texas. It’s a much easier integration. However, I’ve seen (as an adult) how poorly integrated Indiana is (on the black-white axis). By my perception, Arizona has an equal white-Lantinx dysfunction.
I use infant mortality as my baseline measurement for how well a state has integrated – the more integrated, the more likely the parents will be adult, financially stable, well-educated, have a stable social network, have insurance, etc, which are all factors that contribute to thriving children. When you compare infant mortality between the populations on a state by state basis, CA and CO and TX (now that I’ve gone and looked) all do have disparities in outcomes between the white population and the Latinx population, but even with Texas’ awful overall numbers, the three states have about equal and relatively low disparities in their rates. (Texas has relatively high infant mortality, regardless of race.) Arizona (and Indiana, on the black-white axis) have much wider disparities, which points to less integration.
I don’t know why the difference exists specifically in Arizona. (Because you can’t spell crazy without R:AZ?) My guesses are multifaceted: Corridor culture has significant differences from dominant white culture east of the Continental Divide; the early US settlement was primarily mining and rail corp funded, so the early legislation was written by and for a healthy bidniss environment, which leaves a lasting mark; the 20th century high growth was primarily snowbird driven, so the white immigrants were significantly older and wealthier than the national mean at the time, so likely to be more conservative and less interested in funding public goods, like schools; the foundational Latinx and Native societies at the time of early US settlement were extremely self-sufficient and advanced, and endured well, so both sides have been resistant to integration.
I don’t know how to fix it, either. Just do more, try more, work harder.
If you’re not aware, you might want to give Strong Towns a shot, specifically when Steven Shultis is the guest. He’s a public school teacher in a urban, high poverty school, who specifically chose to raise his children in the urban core, in urban schools. He’s got some really interesting perspectives on places to start fixing this mess.
