The three terms comprising the Obama and Trump presidencies provide an opportunity to understand the evolution of race-conscious education policy in an increasingly multiracial, unequal, and divided society. Through document review and interviews with civil rights lawyers, government officials, congressional staffers, and intermediary organization…

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…

Purpose: This article examines the relationship between educational and residential segregation in three school districts with differing approaches to student assignment. Racial and income segregation within school districts is often only examined at the school level, even as school patterns are often related to residential and attendance zone…

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…

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…

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…

Since the Supreme Court's 2007 "Parents Involved" decision, school districts have been pursuing integration in more legally and politically charged environments. The retreat of the federal government in the racial integration of schools is well documented, but less understood is what local school districts are doing to fill that void.…

Sixty-five years after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, the federal and judicial role in school desegregation has declined. In a more difficult political and legal environment, it has fallen on school districts to develop and implement voluntary integration plans through diversity-minded student assignment…

This study provides evidence studying one diverse, countywide district's integration efforts utilizing school choice and parental preferences. The findings illustrate substantial differences about the way in which the district's student assignment policy affects students. In particular, this choice-based integration policy with a weak geographic…

Given what is known about the distinct benefits of racial diversity in schools (see National Coalition on School Diversity (NCSD) Research Brief #5 (ED571629)), alongside the growing interest in and evidence for promoting socioeconomic status (SES) diversity (see NCSD Research Brief #10 (ED603698)), we need to understand whether SES diversity…

Student assignment policies (SAPs) in K-12 schools can either reproduce or help ameliorate existing inequality. Some districts are trying to maintain voluntarily adopted integration policies despite the Supreme Court's recent 2007 decision in "Parents Involved," which prohibited most race-conscious school choice policies that were…

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…

Suburbs across the US are experiencing dramatic demographic shifts, yet there is little research available on how suburban school districts are dealing with these changes. In this article, we examine the discourses surrounding race and demographic change in three suburban school districts that have been undergoing rapid demographic changes and…

"The Integration Anomaly" explores a "puzzling divergence" between changes in metropolitan residential and school segregation. Based on a review of existing literature, it argues that the best way to address rising school segregation is to decouple school assignment from neighborhoods through universal school choice. The report…

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…