Erica Frankenberg

The Role of Residential Segregation in Contemporary School Segregation

Inaction to address housing segregation in metropolitan areas has resulted in persistently high levels of residential segregation. As the Supreme Court has recently limited school districts’ voluntary integration efforts, this article considers the role of residential segregation in maintaining racially isolated schools, namely what is known about the reciprocal relationship between housing and schooling segregation patterns. In addition, it examines the residential and school segregation indices in the largest metropolitan areas since 2000, comparing relationships between the extent of school and residential patterns and changes in each over time. Finally, I consider the legal and policy options for how residential integration efforts might affect school segregation.

Increasingly Segregated and Unequal Schools as Courts Reverse Policy.

Purpose: School administrators and policy makers live in a complex, changing policy universe in which there are many competing demands and political pressures. Rarely is there much time to think about sensitive issues of long duration that are not part of the immediate demands they face. This article is about such an issue, a question that will deeply influence the future of schools and communities but which is usually ignored—the increasing separation of large sectors of our student bodies into intensely segregated schools with unequal educational opportunity. Research Methods: The data analyzed come from the National Center for Education Statistics, Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe, which contain demographic data about all public schools since the late 1980s. We rely on two measures of segregation, concentration and exposure/isolation index, to assess its current status and change over time in the nation’s public schools. Findings: This article describes the vast transformation of the nation’s school population since the civil rights era. As diversity spreads, so too does segregation by race and often class, including into suburbia in many large metropolitan areas. As a legacy of Brown, Black students are still more desegregated in the South than any other region of the country, but both Black and Latino students are experiencing rising segregation. Implications: We conclude with recommendations about possible responses educational leaders might pursue to make the promise of Brown a reality in the 21st century. Desegregation properly implemented can help equalize educational opportunities and prepare young Americans for the diverse society in which they will live.

Walking the Walk: Teacher Candidates’ Professed Commitment to Urban Teaching and Their Subsequent Career Decisions

This study is a longitudinal analysis of the early career decisions made by graduates of an urban-focused secondary teacher preparation program. By matching graduates’ self-reported commitment to teaching in urban schools at the end of the training program to the demographic data of the schools where they subsequently teach, the authors explore the relationship between preservice teacher attitudes about urban schools and their actual career decisions by tracking the urbanicity and student characteristics of graduates’ schools. The authors find that most graduates attain teaching jobs in urban schools, and higher percentages of graduates who exit the program more committed to teaching in urban schools take jobs in urban schools with higher percentages of students of color and low-income students. The vast majority of graduates remain in urban schools, but those graduates who transfer to work in less urban and/or schools with fewer students of color or teachers who leave the field altogether are those who reported lower urban commitment. Understanding how professed commitments to teaching in urban schools at the end of a teacher education program are associated with the subsequent career decisions of graduates represents an important step in understanding why some individuals elect to teach and remain in urban schools.

Diverse Schools in a Democratic Society: New Ways of Understanding How School Demographics Affect Civic and Political Learning

The 2010 Census revealed the extent to which today’s metropolitan areas are growing increasingly diverse. At the forefront of this change are schools. Yet, research on school context continues to rely upon a traditional, cross-sectional bifurcation that designates schools as either diverse or not. This classification may be especially inaccurate for some educational outcomes such as whether schools are cultivating effective citizenship for a diverse democracy. Because of changing demographics, this paper considers whether a new framework for conceptualizing school racial composition, including the number and identity of specific racial groups and the stability of those groups, can determine more precisely the ways in which school diversity impacts students’ citizenship learning.

The "Post-Racial" Politics of Race: Changing Student Assignment Policy in Three School Districts.

Many school districts have recently revised, or tried to revise, their policies for assigning students to schools, because the legal and political status of racial and other kinds of diversity is uncertain, and the districts are facing fiscal austerity. This article presents case studies of politics and student assignment policy in three large school districts: Boston, Massachusetts; Wake County (Raleigh), North Carolina; and Jefferson County (Louisville), Kentucky. In all three districts, there has been pressure to change student-assignment policies in ways that respond to the priorities of White and middle-class populations, with the potential to worsen the options available to students of color. Our case studies reinforce the criticisms of race-neutral politics and policy that have been made by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and others. Race-neutral politics during fiscal retrenchment tends to reframe privilege as common sense and to obscure some students’ structural disadvantages.

School Choice, Racial Segregation, and Poverty Concentration Evidence From Pennsylvania Charter School Transfers

This article examines how student movements between traditional public schools (TPSs) and charters—both brick and mortar and cyber—may be associated with both racial isolation and poverty concentration. Using student-level data from the universe of Pennsylvania public schools, this study builds upon previous research by specifically examining student transfers into charter schools, disaggregating findings by geography. We find that, on average, the transfers of African American and Latino students from TPSs to charter schools were segregative. White students transferring within urban areas transferred to more racially segregated schools. Students from all three racial groups attended urban charters with lower poverty concentration.

Exploring Teachers' Racial Attitudes in a Racially Transitioning Society

The growing diversity of America’s public school enrollment makes it essential that all teachers be prepared for teaching students from diverse backgrounds. This paper explores the racial attitudes of teachers, specifically probing whether, and if so how, they may differ across schools of different student racial contexts. In particular, this paper compares how diverse or segregated schools, conceptualized in three different ways, may impact teachers’ racial attitudes and awareness. Teachers’ racial attitudes may influence teacher behavior towards students of different racial backgrounds, and relate to other aspects of professional behavior and decision-making. School racial context, particularly racial stability, was found to be an important predictor of teachers’ racial attitudes. This paper illuminates important patterns to consider and study further as the racial composition continues to become more diverse and school racial contexts become more complex in terms of composition, stability, and in relation to district composition.

The Politics of Maintaining Diversity Policies in Demographically Changing Urban-Suburban School Districts.

This study focuses on how the demographic change occurring within two county-wide school districts and communities in the South, including the creation of suburban enclaves alongside central cities overwhelmingly made up of low-income students of color, influences community support for diversity policies within two school districts with a history of voluntary integration efforts: Jefferson County Public Schools (Louisville, KY) and the Wake County Public School System (Raleigh, NC). By focusing on two urban-suburban school districts, our research extends prior work examining the politics of diversity in urban school districts to county-wide school districts experiencing rapid suburbanization and stratification.

School Choice in Suburbia: The Impact of Choice Policies on the Potential for Suburban Integration

The bulk of research on the implementation of school choice policies has focused on how choice has been implemented in urban school systems. As of 2007, however, suburban students comprised more than one fourth (29%) of all students engaging in some form of public school choice in the United States. This article examines the implementation of choice in suburban school districts that have been rapidly diversifying, with a focus on how school choice policy relates to—or has interacted with—levels of school segregation within the three districts under study. The findings illustrate how school choice policies, as designed and implemented in these three suburban school districts, have contributed to segregation in these contexts.

Factors That Influence School Board Policy Making The Political Context of Student Diversity in Urban-Suburban Districts

Purpose: This article examines factors that affect school board policy making about student diversity within two southern urban-suburban school districts experiencing changing demographics: Jefferson County Public Schools and the Wake County Public School System. Both districts have a history of voluntary integration efforts, and research shows that racially diverse countywide districts can make integration more feasible. However, as courts constrain mechanisms used in policies to establish/maintain racial integration, it is crucial to examine how school boards make policy decisions while navigating the politics of their communities and competing conceptions surrounding racial diversity. Research Method/Approach: This study employed qualitative case study methods to understand under what circumstances school boards are creating policy, paying particular attention to the local sociopolitical and geographic contexts. Data collected consisted of 37 interviews with school district officials and community stakeholders. Mainstream and specialty media articles, legal documents, and policy documents from the districts or other governmental bodies also helped frame the local contexts. Findings and Lessons Learned: The two districts in our study illustrate political and legal factors that create complex environments to pursue school-level diversity even in districts with a long history of diversity policies. Our study also illustrates the difficult role of the superintendent and school boards in leading diverse communities with different histories and experiences as they navigate the local politics of diversity amid a variety of competing policy goals. We conclude with implications including the importance of remaining vigilant about student diversity efforts and perfecting technical details to minimize politicization about diversity policies.