Panel:
Causes, Consequences, and Barriers to School Integration
(Education)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
In the current climate of increasing public school choice through charter schools, magnet schools, inter-district and intra-district choice, there is considerable concern about the re-segregation of urban public schools. At the same time, many cities are seeing a resurgence in the white middle class due to gentrification and increased school choice options, and individual schools and districts are making concerted efforts to promote integration across multiple dimensions including socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, and English language learner status. Yet, there is limited evidence as to how these policies and demographic shifts affect school integration, the potential barriers to integration under choice, or the consequences of more integrated schools for student performance.
Using both quantitative and qualitative methods and drawing on a variety of disciplinary perspectives, this panel will examine the causes, consequences, and barriers to school integration exploring both unintentional causes of integration—such as gentrification—as well as more intentional district and school policies that may promote more diverse student bodies. Taken together, the four papers in this panel help gauge the success of these efforts in achieving more school diversity, identify potential barriers to integration, and provide evidence on the impacts of diversity on student outcomes. To do so, it brings together researchers from diverse settings including academia, research centers, think tanks, and the government.
The first paper in the session examines the role of gentrification in school integration. It explores whether neighborhood gentrification in NYC has led to more integrated public schools. The second paper uses nationally comprehensive data to examine the effect of charter schools on segregation both within and between districts. The third paper, will move to more intentional district policies that may promote integration, investigating enrollment patterns under a simplified common application in Chicago and identifying barriers that may explain why black students are less likely to select high-rated schools compared to their peers. The fourth and final paper explores examines whether and to what extent students in Diverse by Design (DBD) charters in NYC, Denver, and California attend more diverse schools, the impact of attending DBD charters on student outcomes, and the strategies employed by these schools to create more integrated schooling environments.
The findings from this panel have important implications for education policy. First, they shed light on whether and to what extent intentional policies to diversify schools achieve their goals. Second, this panel identifies existing barriers to integration and suggests possible remedies to make these intentional policies more successful. Finally, it highlights the role of gentrification and charter schools in the process of integrating schools, which is an increasingly important policy issue as urban school districts endeavor to attract new middle class and white families to the public schools while continuing to serve existing low-income and minority student populations.
