Early one morning, September 8, 1965, Operation Exodus unfolded. Poor black parents, with much community support, initiated a school busing program whereby several hundred black children of all ages between five and 14 were to be bused from nearly all-black schools in the black community to predominantly or all-white schools in surrounding communities within the limits of the city of Boston. Although the parties to the conflict presented many and shifting rationales, there never seemed to be any real communication between the chief opponents: the Boston School Committee and the black parents whose children were involved. The present book is part of the story of the conflict. It is also a report of an attempt to evaluate the effects of the busing of black children. Chapter one discusses some educational experiences of Boston blacks in the period 1845-55. Chapter two presents early experience with the group of parents who are the subject of this book. Chapter three presents the research design for the collection of data on the children of the parents described in Chapter two. In Chapters four and five various problems encountered during the research are presented. Some findings with regard to the children and parents are presented in Chapters six and seven. Implications of an attempted evaluation for both (a) other researchers contemplating the evaluation of politically sensitive programs and (b) the formation of educational programs and policies with regard to blacks are presented in the concluding Chapter eight. (Author/JM)