At least 38 states have created service areas or "districts" for each of their community colleges. However, little is known about the geographic boundaries of community college districts and the policymaking process that defines them. We studied state policy documents nationally and the actual district boundaries of Texas community…

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to examine the prevalence and growth of segregation in K-12 public schools. This report examined the extent of (1) racial, ethnic, and economic divisions in K-12 public schools; and (2) district secession and any resulting student demographic shifts. To determine the extent of divisions along…

Declining student enrollment is leading to a loss of revenue in many California school districts. To address ongoing budget shortfalls, many districts have consolidated or shuttered schools, and others are contemplating doing so. A new report and working paper, summarized in this brief, explore the racial dimensions of school closures and how to…

This is the executive summary for the full report, "Crossing the Line: Segregation and Resource Inequality between America's School Districts." School funding debates in the United States tend to center on how much money school districts should receive, and through what policies and formulas. But they almost never focus on the district…

Background: Recent work has documented declining public school racial/ethnic segregation, as students have become more evenly distributed across schools and districts since the turn of the century. However, we know little about how declines in school racial/ethnic segregation have affected students of different levels of economic resources. While…

Most U.S. school districts draw "attendance boundaries" to define catchment areas that assign students to schools near their homes, often recapitulating neighborhood demographic segregation in schools. Focusing on elementary schools, we ask: How much might we reduce school segregation by redrawing attendance boundaries? Combining parent…

When unified status was granted to numerous school districts, school boards developed redistricting plans to implement neighborhood schools. Social justice advocates decried these plans as they reversed over 40 years of progress, as many of these efforts resulted in resegregating schools homogenously grouped by race and wealth. Using piecewise and…

State budgets temporarily crashed amid the COVID-19 pandemic and economic shutdown, placing education funding at risk. To demonstrate implications for school finance, we show that (1) school districts are racially segregated along class lines; (2) higher-poverty districts receive a greater share of funds from state, as opposed to local sources,…

School district boundaries define more than just the area where a certain group of children attends a given set of schools. They also determine the taxing jurisdiction that supports those schools with local property taxes. Big differences in property value can lead to large funding gaps, even between neighboring districts. These disparities in…

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education overturned the "separate but equal" principle promulgated in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson. Yet, almost 70 years after Brown, schools continue to be segregated, and the structure of the public education system has fostered inequities across the nation. Although…

Persistent disparities in school exclusionary policies by race and ethnicity have long been recognized as a major issue in student disciplinary practices and in unequal opportunities for education. Only limited research has been conducted to provide insight into the varying effects of race and ethnicity on the recently increasing implementation of…

Segregation in America persists not just between schools and districts, but also within racially integrated schools where Black and Latinx students are often missing from the highest levels of courses. This single case study examines the changes in levels of courses offered and access to advanced classes in one school district from 2008 to 2018.…

Residential segregation accounts for most school segregation. School choice policies have the potential to decrease school segregation by allowing students to attend schools outside their neighborhoods. However, some research indicates that these policies can also contribute to increased segregation, likely due to differences in access to choice…

An increasing number of central cities across the U.S. are experiencing a growth in white middle-class population, which is associated with gentrification in historically disinvested and racially segregated urban neighborhoods. These changing neighborhood dynamics are starting to shift the context of urban schooling in some districts across the…

The present study employs a geospatial analytical approach to studying the evenness-clustering and isolation-exposure dimensions of segregation in the context of the St. Louis, Missouri, metropolitan region. In contrast to global indicators of segregation, this approach focuses on the evenness and isolation dimensions at the local level to…