Today the New York Times highlights a disturbing case of rezoning in Alabama. In a move that is the first of its kind, parents of children which have been shifted into low-performing schools are using the No Child Left Behind law (which has been harshly critiqued, even in my home city of Kalamazoo) to argue that such practices are illegal.

Tuscaloosa, where the rezoning took place, is a city marked by a turbulent history within its school system. It is the site where George Wallace stood at a schoolhouse door to keep blacks out of the University of Alabama. Though the city is 54 percent white, its school system is 75 percent black.

The move, of which the school superintendent said, “the issue in drawing up our plan was not race -- it was how to use our buildings in the best possible way,” has sparked outcry in the community, as it has shifted hundreds of students, almost all black, into low-performing, all-black schools. “It’s all about race,” said one parent whose two children had been rezoned.  “It’s as clear as daylight.”

When the Board of Education, consisting of eight members, approved the rezoning plan, its two black members and one white ally voted against it. “The issues we dealt with in the ’60s, we’re having to deal with again in 2007,” said Earnestine Tucker, one of the black members. “We’re back to separate but equal — but separate isn’t equal.”

“For decades school districts across the nation used rezoning to restrict black students to some schools while channeling white students to others,” said the Times. “Tuscaloosa’s rezoning dispute, civil rights lawyers say, is one of the first in which the No Child Left Behind law has become central, sending the district into uncharted territory over whether a reassignment plan can trump the law’s prohibition on moving students into low-performing schools.”

These residents have faced decades of struggle. It’s an embarrassment to our country, and a crime against our fellow citizens, that we’re turning back the progress that has been made. I’m interested to see how this case plays out.