29
meant that average test scores continued their upward climb, enhancing the reputation of
the school system, and indirectly, keeping property values in the county high.
While this section reinforces points highlighted earlier, two items merit further
attention. The first is that both Weast and Domenech carefully calibrated their arguments
to their audiences. They were aware of the kinds of arguments that would work with
different audiences. But it doesn’t seem these interest-based appeals were driving their
own decisions. As Superintendent Weast put it:
I’ll appeal, I’ll use any lever I can and try to figure out any way I need to
explain it to get people interested in re-engaging in a more egalitarian
society, either as an individual reaching out to somebody, or as a
contributor. Or, in the worst case, my worst-case scenario, is [that at least
they] not get in the way.
The second point is that, whatever the arguments used, the schools’ proposals to address
the demographic shifts taking place in schools preceded any external pressures or outside
politics. School administrators were the initiators of these policy changes. Again, if we
think of the way political scientists have written about the incorporation of newcomers,
they write of incorporation taking place only as newcomers accumulate resources and are
able to mobilize (or be mobilized) effectively in the political arena. What we see in the
suburban counties in the DC metropolitan area is something else entirely: we see
bureaucratic actors—in this case, in the educational system—taking action to incorporate
racial and ethnic minorities, well before they are under any political pressure to do so.
The timing of the proposals suggests, as does the other evidence presented so far, that the
driving force behind these decisions is coming from the schools themselves, and
particularly from the administrators making decisions about school policy. What we see,
in short, is bureaucratic incorporation.
The Limits of Bureaucratic Incorporation?
The success of the school systems, and particularly of their top administrators, to
formulate a rationale for intervention in response to the increasing ethnic and racial
Convention