Absent a nationwide plan for universal public prekindergarten, states and districts have taken various approaches to increasing access to school-based educational opportunities for their youngest learners. Though some of these programs have focused on making public prekindergarten available to all families, others have targeted families most in…

In this research brief, we describe and decompose school segregation by race and ethnicity in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, in which we include: the District of Columbia; Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax County in Virginia; and Montgomery County and Prince George's County in Maryland. We find only modest segregation within all but one…

Background: Despite accounting for 3% of the student population, multiracial students are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the United States. Aligning with new federal guidelines, in 2008, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) revised its single-race reporting scheme for the Common Core of Data (CCD), permitting students to…

Understanding how and why rising racial and economic segregation impacts achievement gaps is critical to closing them. Analyzing data from every school district in the U.S., researchers sean reardon, Erin Fahle, Heewon Jang, and Ericka Weathers evaluate how growing racial segregation interacts with unequal economic opportunities and contributes to…

New York City's Pre-K for All (PKA) is the nation's largest universal early childhood initiative, serving over 64,000 four-year-olds annually. Stemming from the program's choice architecture as well as the city's stark residential segregation, PKA programs are extremely segregated by child race/ethnicity. Our current study explores the complex…

New Jersey's School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) is a "weighted" funding formula, designed to deliver adequate funding based on the unique student needs in every school district across the state. The SFRA included key elements to address long-standing racial and socio-economic disparities in New Jersey's public school system, most notably…

A new report by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), "Differences by Design?," compares differences in approaches and demographics between and among charter school models and local "traditional public schools." Using three national data sets, the report effectively captures the national universe of charter schools. It…

This article examines a wide array of research on the link between school choice programs and student segregation and draws implications for the Obama Administration's policy promoting the national expansion of charter schools. The research demonstrates how the proliferation of charter schools risks increasing current levels of segregation…

Background: In 1954, the "Brown v. Board of Education" case involved four states and their school segregation laws and policies. During that period, de jure and de facto segregation were a way of life in America. Sixty years later, as most schools across the country have resegregated, the authors ask the question of whether we should be…

This study addresses the segregation of English language learner (ELL) students in schools across Texas. We descriptively analyze levels of racial, economic, and linguistic isolation experienced by ELL students across the state of Texas. We also examine the association between segregation by race/ethnicity, economic disadvantage, and language…

This article examines ethnic segregation, defined as segregation among racial groups as well as between native-born and immigrant students, across elementary school classrooms in New York City. Specifically, the study compares patterns in within-school segregation across ethnic groups, grades, boroughs, and years. Current levels of within-school…

During middle childhood, children begin to navigate their own ways through societal structures, forming ideas about their individual talents and aspirations for the future. The ability to forge a positive pathway can have major implications for their success as adults. The pathways to success, however, may differ for children of diverse cultural,…

This issue reviews national demographic trends in school segregation, summarizing research findings. Though the national debate on school segregation emphasizes blacks and whites, present-day school segregation includes segregation by socioeconomic level, ethnicity, and native language. The research study examined features of the ecology of…