Oftentimes, policymakers discuss school reform only in terms of its benefits to students. In this brief, researcher Bartley R. Danielsen identifies how more multifaceted reforms can not only improve educational outcomes for students but also revitalize communities by encouraging wealthy families to remain in lower-income areas, thereby raising…

We examine whether the legal decision to grant unitary status to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, which led to the end of race-conscious student assignment policies, increased the probability that families with children enrolled in the district would move to neighborhoods with a greater proportion of student residents of the same race as…

In social studies classes, there is a longstanding interest in how societies evolve and change over time. However, as stories of the past unfold, it is often difficult to identify a direct link between causes and effects, so students are forced to accept at face value the interpretations of economists, political scientists, historians,…

This paper examines the literature in the growing field of education and inequality that is concerned with how individuals sort, and the consequences of this knowledge for the accumulation of human capital, equity, efficiency, and welfare. It argues that how individuals sort across neighborhoods, schools, and households (spouses) can have…

Economists have studied the effects of racial prejudice on urban residential structure using a set of models that focus on conditions at the border between the black and white areas. This paper reviews the theoretical literature on these border models and investigates their generality. Section 1 considers the border model developed by Bailey in…