Student Assignment Policies and Racial and Income Segregation of Schools, School Attendance Zones, and Neighborhoods

Abstract

Purpose: This article examines the relationship between educational and residential segregation in three school districts with differing approaches to student assignment. Racial and income segregation within school districts is often only examined at the school level, even as school patterns are often related to residential and attendance zone segregation depending on integration policies aimed at decoupling these relationships. Research Method/Approach: Using an innovative data set, the School Attendance Boundary Survey, along with Census and Common Core of Data data, this analysis examines racial and income segregation at the neighborhood, school zone, and school levels in three districts with varied student assignment policies to explore the relationship between districts’ diversity policies and school, attendance zone, and residential segregation. Findings: We find that, despite high residential segregation, educational segregation varies in these three districts. In the two districts that sought to increase diversity in their student assignment policies, educational segregation was lower than in the third district that did not consider diversity, despite similar levels of residential segregation. The findings suggest that district leaders’ use of diversity-focused student assignment policies may be one way to disrupt the link between residential and school segregation. Conclusions: Understanding the segregation of educational boundaries within school districts, and the relationship between school zone segregation and segregation at other geographic scales, offers insights into how district leaders could utilize student assignment policies to reduce racial and income segregation.

“This is not going to be a quick fix”: a grounded theory study of superintendents leading school integration through redistricting

“…Castro et al, 2022a;Mendez and Quark, 2022) and enriches the pool of more descriptive research into school integration initiatives (e.g. Frankenberg and Kotok, 2013;Quick and Damante, 2016;Siegel-Hawley et al, 2017;Taylor and Frankenberg, 2021).…”

Demographic Change and School Attendance Zone Boundary Changes: Montgomery County, Maryland, and Fairfax County, Virginia, Between 1990 and 2010

“…In addition to descriptive characterizations of school and neighborhood segregation through tables and maps, we also employ a technique for decomposing segregation and segregation change into its constituent parts (Elbers 2021). Decomposition of segregation is not novel in analyses of neighborhood change or school segregation (see Lichter, Parisi, and Taquino 2015b;Fowler, Lee, and Matthews 2016;Fowler 2016;Taylor and Frankenberg 2021). A recent contribution by Benjamin Elbers, however, allows for multidimensional decomposition to examine the relative contribution of groups (such as race-ethnicity) and units (such as census tracts s u b u r b a n i n e q u a l i t y r s f : t h e r u s s e l l s a g e f o u n d a t i o n j o u r n a l o f t h e s o c i a l s c i e n c e s 7.…”

Attendance zones in the suburbs

“…This means that patterns of neighborhood segregation do not mean destiny for levels of school segregation. AZBs can play an important role in mediating that link (Taylor & Frankenberg, 2021).…”