This function, although it may be necessary and useful, distorts the role of community colleges as postsecondary institutions. Thus, while the community colleges have not been the focus of so much reformer concern, in some ways, they have farther to go in defining and implementing a role that is consistent with the emerging economy than the high schools. Concerns about equity and minority access to education dominated educational reform in the 1960s and 1970s. These concerns gave way to a preoccupation with the economy in the 1980s. Strategies based on desegregation were thwarted as whites became a shrinking minority of school populations in many major urban areas.
Reform based on the integration strategy has the potential to strengthen minority education.
If it improves urban school systems, minorities will benefit. Indeed, many African-American and Hispanic students have been able to take advantage of occupationally oriented magnet schools. To the extent that these particular reforms upgrade vocational programs in general, African-Americans especially stand to gain since they tend to be overrepresented in those programs. But the truncated reforms we have seen so far maintain sharp stratification. More local control has the potential to increase the involvement of minority communities in education, but it is too early to evaluate the effects of recent reforms such as those in Chicago.