The next year Bial started the Posse Foundation. From her work with students around the city, she chose five New York City high school students who were clearly leaders — dynamic, intelligent, creative, resilient — but who might not have had the SAT scores to get into good schools. Vanderbilt University was willing to admit them all, tuition-free.  The students met regularly in their senior year of high school, through the summer, and at college. Surrounded by their posse, they all thrived.

There can be value for school districts keeping schools diverse, especially for low-income and minority students, said Vanderbilt University Professor Donna Ford, who researches urban education. It allows students to be subjected to competition and different views , she said.

“Schools are not only educational institutions, but social ones,” Ford said. “Thus, all the baggage that comes with class and race issues are alive and well in schools.

“The (Franklin) school district seems to be working to decrease inequities between the haves and have-nots, which is an increasing problem nationally.”

The South has become the first region in the country where more than half of public school students are poor and more than half are members of minorities, according to a new report.The shift was fueled not by white flight from public schools, which spiked during desegregation but has not had much effect on school demographics since the early 1980s. Rather, an influx of Latinos and other ethnic groups, the return of blacks to the South and higher birth rates among black and Latino families have contributed to the change.