The purpose of this "Equity by Design" brief is to provide information to parents, community members, and school district leaders and teachers about the relationship between housing policy and school policy. Specifically, this brief provides a succinct history of U.S. housing policy, discusses some current educational policies that…

A major force in urban neighborhoods across the country, gentrification is also transforming the nation's capital. In 2011, Washington, DC reached a non-black majority for the first time in more than a half century, and since 2000, the city's white population has increased from just over a quarter to well over a third of the total population. This…

While some state and local education agencies may raise concerns over shifting legal principles and political apprehension in pursuing strategies that integrate students across race, socioeconomic status, and other factors, the changing demographics warrant serious inquiry into integration opportunities. This paper surveys the landscape of K-12…

The last several years have seen renewed debate over the role that race plays in higher education--a debate over "affirmative action." The report first considers "affirmative action" in its original sense: the "mandatory" race-conscious measures that the federal courts have imposed on "de jure" segregated…

In 1975, a court-ordered busing program was launched to desegregate the schools of New Castle County, Delaware. It was by many accounts one of the most significant and successful desegregation programs in the nation (Armor & Rossell, 2002; Orfield, 2014; Raffel, 1980). In 1995, the districts of the county were declared "unitary" and…

Following the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans public schools underwent a variety of changes including a mass influx of charter schools as well as a demographic shift in the racial composition of the district. Using school-level data from the Louisiana Department of Education, this study examines the extent that New Orleans public schools…

As the early twentieth century's restrictive social policies and poor economic conditions relegated African Americans in St. Louis, Mo. to high poverty neighborhoods, parents were forced to enroll their children in substandard segregated schools. Meanwhile the African American population increased in size from 108,765 (11.4 percent) in 1940 to…

This research explores the historical development of African American teacher and principal hiring and placement in Columbus, Ohio, from 1940 to 1980. In 1909, the Columbus Board of Education established Champion Avenue School creating a de facto segregated school to educate the majority of African American children and to employ Black educators.…

In this article, Carol Ann Tomlinson reflects on "the next steps on the march toward equity?" It was not until her first teaching job that she had a real understanding of societal inequities in a very rural, very poor area of a southern state. In this context she began to develop an understanding of how society sends its young to school…

This article reconstructs the story behind "Freeman v. Pitts" (1992), one of the main US Supreme Court cases that made it easier for school districts to terminate court desegregation orders and that, in turn, helped to propel a widely documented trend: the resegregation of southern schools. The case in part hinged on the question of…

Six years after "Brown v. Board of Education", Atlanta reluctantly complied with the order to desegregate its school system rather than risk having schools closed due to noncompliance. Out of 132 students, nine black high school seniors desegregated four of Atlanta's all-white high schools. The purpose of this study is to explore and…

In this ethnographic study, we look closely at everyday classroom interactions in order to examine the complex process of creating equitable classroom communities in racially and socioeconomically diverse schools. We use the lens of relational difference (Abu El-Haj, 2006) to examine how students negotiate social boundaries within their new…

Purpose: This article reflects on the 60th anniversary of the "Brown v. Board of Education" Supreme Court decision while discussing the significant lessons learned from this and subsequent court decisions. Argument: In this article, we posit that a fundamentally different conversation surrounding the legacy of Brown is needed if we are…

Drawing from the lenses of critical race theory (CRT) and Pierre Bourdieu's notion of habitus, this article compares the Jackie Robinson story with the Brown versus Board of Education narrative. This juxtaposition illustrates the similarities of these narratives and how interests converged racially. By comparing these historical narratives, we…

Although it is clear that racial segregation is linked to academic achievement gaps, the mechanisms underlying this link have been debated since Coleman published his eponymous 1966 report. In this paper, I examine 16 distinct measures of segregation to determine which is most strongly associated with academic achievement gaps. I find very clear…