School attendance zone boundary (AZB) data remain relatively underdocumented and understudied within the field of education, despite their critical implications for educational (in)equity. AZBs shape student outcomes and residential sorting patterns both by determining the public schools a student is assigned to and by signaling neighborhood…

The American voters have spoken, and the country will inaugurate a Biden-Harris Administration in January. In his first speech as President-Elect on November 7, 2020, Joe Biden said that, "the battle to achieve racial justice and root out systemic racism in this country" was a pillar of the Biden-Harris transition plan. This important…

Maintaining racially and economically integrated schools is crucial in fostering an equitable education environment and carries tremendous academic and social benefits for students and the community. Erica Frankenberg, Ed.D., Pennsylvania State and Director of the Center for Education & Civil Rights, provides integration strategies by and for…

Each year, the federal government provides billions of dollars in support for low-income families in their acquisition of housing. In this analysis, we examine how several of these subsidized housing programs, public housing and Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) financed housing, relate to patterns of school segregation for children. We use…

"Brown v. Board of Education" declared in 1954 that racially segregated schools were unequal, invalidating laws requiring segregation of black and white students in seventeen states. Since then, legal decisions have furthered racial desegregation in schools and more recent decisions have arguably impeded it. This research brief explores…

Boundary lines have long served as a mechanism to divide people, determining the quality of available resources, and ultimately, educational opportunity. In recent years, new school district boundaries have proliferated as local communities attempt to secede from larger school districts. In this study of Memphis-Shelby County, Tennessee, we extend…

As the federal entity in charge of enforcing civil rights law, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) plays a critical role in addressing the vast inequities that exist in U.S. education. Through an analysis of the policy guidance OCR issued for a number of areas during the Obama administration, we illustrate the agency's…

This article examines how student movements between traditional public schools (TPSs) and charters--both brick and mortar and cyber--may be associated with both racial isolation and poverty concentration. Using student-level data from the universe of Pennsylvania public schools, this study builds upon previous research by specifically examining…

Many school districts have recently revised, or tried to revise, their policies for assigning students to schools, because the legal and political status of racial and other kinds of diversity is uncertain, and the districts are facing fiscal austerity. This article presents case studies of politics and student assignment policy in three large…

Using individual-level student data from Pennsylvania, this study explores the extent to which charter school racial composition may be an important factor in students' self-segregative school choices. Findings indicate that, holding distance and enrollment constant, Black and Latino students are strongly averse to moving to charter schools with…

As the anniversary of "Brown v. Board of Education" decision arrives again without any major initiatives to mitigate spreading and deepening segregation in the nation's schools, the Civil Rights Project adds to a growing national discussion with a research brief drawn from a much broader study of school segregation to be published in…

Noting the nation's renewed attention to remedying school segregation, "Segregation, Race, and Charter Schools" presents evidence about the extent of school segregation and its relationship with improving student achievement for students of color. The report argues that school segregation has remained flat for decades and also argues…

Purpose: School administrators and policy makers live in a complex, changing policy universe in which there are many competing demands and political pressures. Rarely is there much time to think about sensitive issues of long duration that are not part of the immediate demands they face. This article is about such an issue, a question that will…

As the demographic make-up of public schools (and neighborhoods) shift and schools become increasingly segregated, the role of school boards becomes critically important in maintaining policies designed to remedy segregation and promote equal opportunity, policies which may challenge the status quo. Specifically, in school districts and…

The charter school movement has been a major political success, but a civil rights failure. As the country moves steadily toward greater segregation and inequality of education for students of color in schools with lower achievement and graduation rates, the rapid growth of charter schools has expanded a sector that is even more segregated than…