By Natalie Spievack (click here for the PDF) San Francisco faces a dire affordable housing crisis, which disproportionately affects low-income residents and residents of color (San Francisco Planning Department [SF Planning], 2020b). But, wide disparities in educational opportunities and outcomes are an equal threat to the city’s future economic vitality (Matthews, 2017). The … [Read more...] about “Prioritizing Educational Equity and School Integration in San Francisco’s Affordable Housing Strategies” by Natalie Spievack (Oct – Dec 2021 P&R Issue)
Housing/Education Nexus
There is a reciprocal relationship between residential segregation and segregated schools. Federal housing policy and historical patterns of housing segregation have created stark divides between wealthy, largely white communities with high property values and predominantly minority communities with more limited resources. Due to the local nature of school funding, communities with higher property value can generate more funding for schools, leading to more comprehensive educational resources and higher test scores, which in turn drives up the price of homes in the school district. In this way the socioeconomic and racial divisions between neighborhoods and schools perpetuate themselves in a vicious cycle. Just as residential and school segregation are mutually reinforcing, so too are the effects of residential and school integration. Children attending integrated schools are more likely to live in integrated neighborhoods as adults, and send their own children to integrated schools. The effects are reciprocal, working positively in both directions.
For more on PRRAC’s work on this topic, visit our page on the Housing-School Nexus.
“Tackling School and Housing Segregation Through Revisions to AFFH” by Elizabeth DeBray, Kara S. Finnigan, Andrew J. Greenlee, & Heidi Kurniawan (Oct – Dec 2021 P&R Issue)
By Elizabeth DeBray, Kara S. Finnigan, Andrew J. Greenlee, & Heidi Kurniawan (click here for the PDF) Housing and School Segregation As inter-district racial disparities have increased over the past decades (Owens et al., 2016), fragmentation of multiple school districts in metropolitan areas hindered coordination of broader policies aimed at reducing the racial … [Read more...] about “Tackling School and Housing Segregation Through Revisions to AFFH” by Elizabeth DeBray, Kara S. Finnigan, Andrew J. Greenlee, & Heidi Kurniawan (Oct – Dec 2021 P&R Issue)
“Defining Segregation” by Anika Singh Lemar (Oct – Dec 2021 P&R Issue)
By Anika Singh Lemar (click here for the PDF) What is a segregated school? State legislative efforts to address school segregation in the 1960s and ‘70s sought to answer that question in statutory text. While many of those statutes have been repealed or amended (Baker, 2013), Connecticut’s Racial Imbalance Act (“RIA”) remains—for the most part—in effect, and its definition of … [Read more...] about “Defining Segregation” by Anika Singh Lemar (Oct – Dec 2021 P&R Issue)
“Sharing the Wealth: How Regional Finance and Desegregation Plans Can Enhance School Desegregation and Promote Educational Equity” by John Brittain, Larkin Willis, Peter W. Cookson, Jr., & Michael Alves (Oct – Dec 2021 P&R Issue)
By John Brittain, Larkin Willis, Peter W. Cookson, Jr., & Michael Alves (click here for the PDF) Introduction “Despite a growing awareness of the problems facing urban communities, there is a lack of a broader framework or clear policy approach to address the underlying regional dynamics that drive segregation, concentrated poverty, and racial isolation. Broader … [Read more...] about “Sharing the Wealth: How Regional Finance and Desegregation Plans Can Enhance School Desegregation and Promote Educational Equity” by John Brittain, Larkin Willis, Peter W. Cookson, Jr., & Michael Alves (Oct – Dec 2021 P&R Issue)
“School Desegregation, School Rezoning, and Growth Management in Two Maryland Counties” by Ariel H. Bierbaum & Gail L. Sunderman (Oct – Dec 2021 P&R Issue)
By Ariel H. Bierbaum & Gail L. Sunderman (click here for the PDF) The increasing diversity of America’s suburbs is changing the dynamics of how we think about access to educational opportunity across and within metropolitan areas. As large numbers of low-income families and families of color migrate to the suburbs (Frey, 2018; Howell & Timberlake, 2014), how … [Read more...] about “School Desegregation, School Rezoning, and Growth Management in Two Maryland Counties” by Ariel H. Bierbaum & Gail L. Sunderman (Oct – Dec 2021 P&R Issue)
