"Plessy v. Ferguson" provided the foundation for a system of segregation and exclusion that adversely affected African Americans throughout the twentieth century. Segregation was perpetuated by federal policies. During the 1940s and 1950s, the federal government facilitated the construction of suburban communities with Veterans…

This is the policy brief for the discussion paper, "Still Worth the Trip? School Busing Effects in Boston and New York." While choice systems offer students in segregated neighborhoods access to schools that may be more integrated and of higher quality, does busing lead to improved academic performance as measured by higher test scores…

In 2017, Matthew Chingos and Kristin Blagg of the Urban Institute convened a group of researchers to analyze students' school choices and travel to school in five cities-- Denver, Detroit, New Orleans, New York, and Washington, D.C.--where families are able to select from among many charter and district schools. The team found that a large number…

Pupil transportation is a vital component of the education system. There are many facets and hurdles that must be addressed in order to provide the safest transportation possible. In some cases, it may seem almost impossible to transport students during the COVID-19 pandemic but implementing some changes at the district and school level may allow…

The development of non-Orthodox Jewish day schools in Los Angeles in the 1970s to 1990s can be attributed to a combination of factors, including the city's geography, the deterioration of public education, court-ordered busing that began in the 1970s, and strong rabbinic personalities. Yet, as elementary day schools proliferated throughout the…

Growing up in a poor, dysfunctional family in a violent inner-city neighborhood, Jackson faced daily challenges even getting to the bus stop without being attacked by gang members. When he was bused to a white suburban school in 5th grade, things got even worse. Every black student who was bused in from his neighborhood was placed in remedial…

New Brunswick High School, which had been racially integrated for decades, became majority-minority (and soon, all minority) in the 1970s, after years of legal wrangling led hundreds of its students to depart for a new, nearly all-white high school in the adjacent suburb of North Brunswick. White suburbanites invoked "local control" to…

In the social sciences, public access to data is now the norm at a variety of federal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation. This openness dramatically expanded the quality of research that social scientists can pursue, and it discourages unscrupulous practices such as inventing or manipulating data. It also means, essentially, that…