It is difficult to overstate the importance of segregation for race- and ethnicity-based school funding disparities in the United States. In many respects, unequal educational opportunity depends existentially on segregation. Racial and ethnic disparities in wealth accumulation are perpetuated over generations, ensuring persistent segregation even…

"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…

Describes how the Minneapolis Public Schools, Minnesota, identified system-wide standards and practices to help all students achieve the goal of 95 percent attendance, an especially difficult goal for highly mobile students. The Kids Mobility Study in Minneapolis documents the connection between residential mobility and student achievement and…

Explains how local, state, and federal governments have exacerbated or failed to take steps to reduce residential segregation in the St. Louis (Missouri) metropolitan area since the 1981 Liddell v. Board of Education decision that decided that school board and governmental housing policies had contributed to segregation in the city's schools. (SLD)

Deals with facets of school segregation in Amsterdam, a city in which two-thirds of youth have a non-native background. The role of residential segregation in the segregation of elementary schools and the importance of educational background in the segregation of secondary schools are discussed. There are implications for schooling in the United…

The Section 8 housing assistance program in Jefferson County, Kentucky, is a Federally funded program designed to expand the housing choices of low to moderate income families. This report provides an analysis of all moves made in Jefferson County between 1975 and 1979 by participants in the program, as they relate to the county's school…

The policy of open school choice in the Netherlands has increased the isolation of ethnic minority students in urban public schools as white flight occurs. Parents and students tend to separate themselves from those who are different, a finding with implications for school choice in the United States. (SLD)

Helping poor families increase their residential stability can have direct bearing on school stability and student academic achievement. Discusses the role of housing in child and family wellbeing; residential mobility and school performance; residential mobility and housing problems; housing affordability; (federal housing policy); homeownership;…

This study argues that the desegregation of the Columbus (Ohio) public schools failed to ensure equal educational opportunity not because it was inherently detrimental to learning, but because it was intrinsically incompatible with the city's steady geographic and economic growth. Even before the beginning of busing in 1979, the threat of…

Conventional school desegregation techniques have failed because they do not redress the root causes of segregation. An alternative approach, controlled choice, maximizes personal choice within an equitable, educationally enhanced system. This approach has been adopted by three school systems and is being reviewed by several more. (VM)

This description of the accomplishments and shortcomings of one school desegregation plan provides insights into much broader dialogue on the role of race in America. St. Louis (Missouri) and its suburbs demographically resemble many midsized contemporary metropolitan areas in the United States. What makes St. Louis unique is an urban-suburban…

Urban school desegregation can be achieved through more sensible housing policies. Review of the current situation shows that some States (New York, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Minnesota, for example) have been able to integrate their schools by fostering the development of low and moderate income housing in particular urban…

This report looks at the past two decades and the impact of the growth of Hispanic and Asian populations and how they are being affected by school segregation, desegregation, and resegregation. School segregation of Hispanics has increased dramatically during a period in which the nation's Hispanic enrollment has also soared. Segregation has also…

Specific demographic changes that occurred in the New York City metropolitan area during the 1980s are described, and the challenges and opportunities facing the city in the 1990s are explored. The 1980s saw the greatest increase in the diversity of the city in its history, but sharp inequality, running along racial and ethnic lines, persists in…

The system for financing education in Illinois fails to deliver sufficient resources to the school districts that need them most. Although no individual or administrative unit acts to deprive particular groups, the system as a whole does. Using Census figures, state and local tax records and information from the Illinois Board of Education, this…