The belief that desegregation in the public schools has been a failed and costly policy is widespread. Educational standards suffer and public support declines, it is said, when the schools are used as agencies of social reform. In this study of school desegregation in San Francisco, Doris Fine argues that although the schools' difficulties are real, they are due not to the policy of desegregation but to deficiencies of leadership and organization within the schools.

Fine's central concern is institutional integrity and the demoralization that sets in when integrity is undermined....