Income Segregation Between Schools and School Districts

Abstract

Although trends in the racial segregation of schools are well documented, less is known about trends in income segregation. We use multiple data sources to document trends in income segregation between schools and school districts. Between-district income segregation of families with children enrolled in public school increased by over 15% from 1990 to 2010. Within large districts, between-school segregation of students who are eligible and ineligible for free lunch increased by over 40% from 1991 to 2012. Consistent with research on neighborhood segregation, we find that rising income inequality contributed to the rise in income segregation between schools and districts during this period. The rise in income segregation between both schools and districts may have implications for inequality in students' access to resources that bear on academic achievement.ANN OWENS is an assistant professor of sociology and (by courtesy) spatial sciences at the University of Southern California, 851 Downey Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1059; e-mail: annowens@usc.edu. Her research interests include sociology of education, urban sociology, social policy, and social stratification. Current research focuses on the causes, trends, and consequences of income and racial segregation between neighborhoods and schools. SEAN F. REARDON is the endowed Professor of Poverty and Inequality in Education and professor (by courtesy) of sociology at Stanford University. His research focuses on the causes, patterns, trends, and consequences of social and educational inequality; the effects of educational policy on educational and social inequality; and applied statistical methods for educational research. CHRISTOPHER JENCKS is the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. His recent research deals with changes in family structure over the past generation, the costs and benefits of economic inequality, the extent to which economic advantages are inherited, and the effects of welfare reform. His books include The Academic Revolution (with David Riesman);

The Racial Composition of Neighborhoods and Local Schools: The Role of Diversity, Inequality, and School Choice

“…Recent research on the consequences of rising income inequality has focused on the economic segregation produced by more affluent residents sorting into different school districts than their less advantaged counterparts (Owens et al. ); these trends are particularly acute among parents (Owens ), which suggests that schooling considerations play a central role in parents’ residential choices. The growing economic segregation across school districts has contributed to rising inequality in children's educational outcomes (Mayer 2001, Owens ; Quillian ).…”

“…While some research has also considered economic sorting among schools within large districts (Owens et al. ), far less research has considered the educational dynamics within economically diverse school attendance zones, where neighborhood integration may produce integration within the local schools. The presence of alternatives to the local public schools may actually facilitate neighborhood socioeconomic integration: “[A]s options for non‐neighborhood public and private schools proliferate, families may feel more free to enact their ideal residential preferences without concern for school quality” (Goyette , p. 17).…”

Income Inequality and Class Divides in Parental Investments

“…1 Such anxieties and preferences could be magnified by playing out a time when residential segregation by income has been sharply increasing (Reardon and Bischoff, 2011), particularly among families with children (Owens, 2016) and with consequences for the income segregation of schools 1 Additionally, high-SES parents could increase their investments in children more strongly in reaction to rising income inequality than lower-SES parents because their investments of time and money in children are more effective (Guryan et al 2008;Hsin, 2009;Villena-Roldan and Rios-Aguillar, 2012) or because high-SES parents may be more informed about the benefits of such investment (Kalil et al, 2012). and districts (Owens, Reardon, and Jencks, 2016). High-SES parents are then increasingly surrounded by like-minded peers, which might intensify their motivation to invest in children (Blalock, 1984).…”

The Potential Promises and Pitfalls of Using Local Norms for Gifted Identification

“…The 20% highest achieving students at a low-poverty schools will likely score very differently from the 20% highest achieving students at high-poverty schools but both will likely require additional educational opportunities outside the general classroom to prevent their academic achievement from plateauing (Callahan & Miller, 2005;Reis & Renzulli, 2010;Subotnik et al, 2011). As communities and schools become more economically segregated and larger proportions of students fall below the poverty line, steps need to be taken to help bolster disadvantaged students' probability of success (Owens, 2010;Owens, Reardon, & Jencks, 2016;Plucker & Peters, 2018). There have been many studies quantifying the unequal educational opportunities for children of different social classes and exploring how income gaps develop over time but few scholars that have put forth school-based local norms as a possible solution (McBee, 2010;Olszewski-Kubilius & Corwith, 2018;Peters & Engerrand, 2016;Plucker & Peters, 2018).…”

“…As a result of the increasing social stratification of neighborhoods and the relatively small size of elementary schools, school quality (e.g. quality and number of teachers, curriculum) varies largely as a function of the financial resources of one's neighborhood, and students in the same school tend to have similar SES backgrounds (Entwisle & Alexander, 1999;Owens, 2010;Owens et al, 2016;Plucker & Peters, 2018). Using school locale as a proxy for neighborhood, the models in this study aim to examine the variability in proportion of identified gifted students between schools by altering the cut score using several norming procedures.…”