Expanded school-choice policies have weakened the traditional link between residence and school assignment. These policies have created new school options and new labor for families to manage and divide. Drawing on interviews with 90 mothers and 12 fathers of elementary-age children, I demonstrate that mothers across class, racial, and ethnic…

For decades, social theorists have posited--and descriptive accounts have shown--that students isolated by both social class and ethnicity suffer extreme deprivations that limit the effectiveness of equal-opportunity interventions. Even educational programs that yield positive results for moderately disadvantaged students may not prove beneficial…