University of Michigan. Programs for Educational Opportunity

See history found in the manuscript finding aid for PER records

A race desegregation assistance center based at the University of Michigan, the Program for Educational Opportunity was established by funding through the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The program was expanded to encompass race, gender, and national origin equity in public schools in the Great Lakes region.

Programs for Educational Opportunity (PEO) is a race desegregation assistance center based at the University of Michigan and originally funded under Title IV of the 1964 Federal Civil Rights Act. PEO was established in 1970 under the directorship of Charles Moody and provided services to Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. PEO serves as the umbrella agency for the Project for Fair Administration of School Discipline (PFASD), which was originally funded under Title VII--Emergency School Aid, Special Student Concerns Projects--and evaluates and aids midwestern school districts in eradicating incommensurate discipline of minority students. Since its inception, PEO has provided assistance to over three thousand school districts, and in-depth technical assistance to over one hundred school districts.

PEO and PFASD have served Michigan school districts in the transition period following the passing of the Civil Rights Act until the present. According to a grant proposal narrative, PEO was founded to aid both schools and students by a focus not on desegregation, but on integration to attain equality of opportunity. Furthermore, PEO and PFASD existed to address discriminatory student assignment, inequitable discipline, unrepresentative student participation, unequal counseling, discriminatory employment practices, biased curriculum, classroom segregation, interracial conflict, and community hostility toward desegregation. PEO and PFASD have supported schools seeking these goals in a number of ways. In partnership, they have conducted local, regional, and national in-service training and conferences for school districts on many topics such as human relations training, recruiting minority staff, combating racism and sexism in the curriculum, student rights and discipline, and the development of staff counseling skills. A number of reports have been issued which detail the history of desegregation in the Ann Arbor, Detroit, Ferndale, Grand Rapids, Highland Park, and Kalamazoo school districts.

PFASD also issued a number of reports both general and specific to school districts in the evaluation of schools in the equity of discipline among students. School districts were ranked at different levels within Local Education Agencies (LEAs); each district was assigned a case worker from PEO/PFASD who visited the schools on numerous occasions and reported their findings in field activities reports. Many such field activity reports were utilized to create both general and specific case studies which were then distributed to schools and/or delivered at conferences and in-service training.

PEO is now a combined Race, Gender, and National Origin Desegregation Assistance Center. The Gender Center began in 1981 and the National Origin Center in 1987. In 1988, the name was changed from the Program for Educational Opportunity to the Programs for Educational Opportunity to reflect the wider scope of its efforts. One grant currently funds all three aspects of PEO--race, gender, and national origin--and is subject to renewal every three years. While the program exists within the School of Education, there is no direct funding from the University of Michigan, nor any direct involvement by education faculty. Charles Moody remained director until 1987 when he was appointed University of Michigan Vice Provost for Minority Affairs. Upon his appointment, Percy Bates assumed directorship of the program.