In an age of resegregation, these schools are trying to balance poor and wealthy kids
As U.S. public schools have grown increasingly segregated by race and income, there is a growing number of school districts and charter schools striving for greater balance among their students, according to new research released Tuesday by the Century Foundation, a left-leaning think tank.
Researchers identified 91 school districts and charter school chains serving more than 4 million students — including the District of Columbia and Chicago Public Schools — that are using tools such as magnet schools, weighted lotteries, and changes in school attendance zones to create more balance between white students and those of color, and between low-income and more affluent children.
That is more than double the number employing such tactics in 2007, according to Halley Potter, a fellow at the Century Foundation and one of the authors of the report.
The new methods, which rely on choice and incentives, are a far cry from the forced busing policies that were a hallmark of early desegregation efforts. In many cases, school districts are focused on integrating children of different economic backgrounds, as opposed to race, though the two are inextricably linked, Potter said.
“Part of the growth of these socioeconomic strategies is a reflection of the legal environment for racial desegregation, which just continues to get trickier,” she said. “Communities serious about tackling integration find that these tools are the best way.”
U.S. public schools are more racially segregated now than they were in the 1970s. More than one-third of all black and Latino students attend schools that are more than 90 percent non-white, according to the Century Foundation. For white students, the image is flipped: more than one-third attend schools that are nearly all white.
Research shows that children from low-income families — a group that is proportionately more African American and Latino — perform better academically when they attend schools that are not majority-poor. Segregated, high-poverty schools tend to have fewer experienced teachers, fewer challenging courses, inferior facilities, less access to private funding and In an age of resegregation, these schools are trying to balance poor and wealthy kids - The Washington Post:
