Introduction to the Peabody Journal of Education 93(4): Tensions Between School Choice and Neighborhood Schools Research

School choice’s effects on neighborhood schools and school diversity is one of the most hotly debated topics in education reform today. This issue of the Peabody Journal of Education tackles the tension between the desire for school choice and the desire for neighborhood schools as well as the effects of both models on school integration in American cities. The interdisciplinary methods and diverse theoretical frameworks used by the researchers in this issue should inform the current debate and educational policy discussions.

The empirical studies included in this issue analyze the processes through which urban school inequality and segregation are maintained or interrupted and explore distinct aspects of school and neighborhood choice. The articles examine the influence of these factors on a cross-section of populations, including a geostatistical national analysis of changes in school and neighborhood demographics over the past 25 years; case studies at the county, city, and neighborhood level; a cross-case analysis examining a variety of choice mechanisms and their influence on parents, families, and community; and a literature review exploring the burgeoning field of gentrification and education. This issue of the Peabody Journal contributes to the literature by finding underexplored areas within the research on school choice and desegregation policy, and by offering potential solutions at the intersection of our research.

Background

Advantaged parents are increasingly opting into raising families in diverse American cities, yet they are faced with school choices that do not reflect balanced diversity (Cucchiara, 2013; Huseman, 2016; Mader, Hemphill, & Abbas, 2015; Posey-Maddox, 2014; Roda, 2015). Much has been written about segregated neighborhoods and their resultant segregated schools (Duncan, Murnane, & Children's Life Chances, 2011; Holme, 2002; Lareau & Goyette, 2014). In fact, since the 1980s, as desegregation policies have slowly been abandoned, many districts have returned to neighborhood schools that are a reflection of segregated communities. However, as cities gentrify, a growing number of neighborhoods have wealthy residents living beside low-income residents (Ehrenhalt, 2013; Lees, Slatter, & Wyly, 2008; Sassen, 2006). This environment has the potential to create opportunities for more socioeconomically and racially diverse neighborhood schools that benefit all students (Frankenberg & DeBray, 2011; Wells, Fox, Cordovo-Cobo, & Can Benefit All Students, 2016).

Yet, at the very moment that diverse options could be possible, market-driven school choice policies enable pathways for families to avoid neighborhood schools (Hemphill & Mader, 2015; Johnson & Shapiro, 2003; Lipman, 2011). This school choice pattern can influence the demographics of schools and related measures of school “success” as more advantaged families obtain disproportionate access to highly coveted schools, which can negatively affect access and opportunity for lower-income students and their families (Aggarwal, 2014; Mader, Hemphill, & Abbas, 2018; Pattillo, 2015; Posey-Maddox, Kimelberg, & Cucchiara, 2014; Roda & Wells, 2013). As city schools attract more socioeconomically and racially diverse students, how can educators and policymakers create desirable urban public schools that are also integrated? What are the barriers to successfully integrating urban schools?

Defining terms such as “diverse,” “neighborhood school,” and “school choice” is complicated. It is particularly complex when discussing the resegregation of cities and schools alongside gentrification and renewed middle-class interest in cities and schools. The papers in this journal look at school choice from a variety of perspectives. Makris; Quarles & Butler; and Roda examine market-driven reforms in gentrifying urban contexts while Frankenberg; Finnigan & Holme; and McDermott & Fung-Morley look at choice policies aimed at integrating schools. There is a tension within the journal between choice as a way to advantage the already advantaged—which often results in increased school segregation—and choice as a way to push integration. In Boston, McDermott & Fung-Morley show how advantaged parents are fighting for neighborhood schools that they can walk to, disadvantaging the less advantaged because of where high-quality schools are located in the city. In Tindley (pseudonym), Makris illustrates how advantaged parents are losing sleep over charter school lotteries to avoid the traditionally segregated neighborhood school. Alternatively, Roda focuses on a group of gentrifier parents in Prospect Point (pseudonym) who are bucking these segregative trends to choose their diverse neighborhood schools.

In the background of all of this work is the need to examine socioeconomic inequality and affordable housing to maintain, support, and allow for vibrant socioeconomically and racially diverse communities.

Overview of the issue

We ordered the articles in this issue by scope, scale, and type of school choice implementation. We start the issue with a quantitative study that examines a national sample of the 100 most populous U.S. cities. Ryan W. Coughlan’s geostatistical study, “Divergent Trends in Neighborhood and School Segregation in the Age of School Choice,” investigates how demographic changes in the 100 largest U.S. cities from 1990 to 2015 have reshaped the demographic compositions of neighborhoods and schools. The article shows that an overwhelming majority of cities have experienced increases in neighborhood-level integration, while a large majority of schools in their accompanying districts have become increasingly segregated. These divergent patterns in neighborhood and school segregation require attention from policymakers.

The second article is a qualitative cross-case analysis of two metro areas by Kara S. Finnigan and Jennifer Jellison Holme. Their article, “The Political Geography of Inter-District Integration,” examines efforts to solve school segregation through inter-district integration policies in East Palo Alto, CA, and Omaha, NE. The authors show how school integration policies and the underlying political geography of these two spaces had the possibility of beginning to tackle underlying inequities. At the same time, they highlight important tensions that must be addressed in policy models to address region-wide integration and, ultimately, educational equity. Next, we include a quantitative analysis of a countywide school district choice plan. In Erica Frankenberg’s article on Louisville, Kentucky’s choice-based integration policy, “Preferences, Proximity, and Controlled Choice,” she found that a choice policy with a weak geographic preference still advantages those who choose their nearest schools as well as white students and those living in more advantaged areas. In the fourth article, “Quality, Close to Home and Invisible Zero-Sum Politics,” Kathryn A. McDermott and Anna Fung-Morley trace the historical evolution of Boston’s controlled school choice plan, which was changed in 2013 to give priority to “quality” schools close to a student’s home. The authors show that the new home-based policy limits black and Latinx Boston students’ access to higher quality schools while also enabling maintenance of enclave schools that serve more white and Asian students.

The fifth and sixth articles in the journal are qualitative in-depth case studies: the first explores the school-choice landscape at the city level, and the second investigates the debate between choice schools and local schools in an urban neighborhood in New York City. In “The Chimera of Choice,” Molly Vollman Makris demonstrates how parents in a district with choice (intra-district and charter schools) do not actually feel they have, or know they have, true school choice. This research calls into question one of the major arguments for school choice—namely, that choice provides all parents the opportunity to choose the best fit for their child—by demonstrating that in actual practice choice does not meet parents’ expectation that they are in control of their child’s educational options, regardless of their class background. Allison Roda’s article “School Choice and the Politics of Parenthood” focuses on a parent advocacy group and their mission to mobilize other parents to opt into their local neighborhood schools. Findings show that about one third of families living in Prospect Point choose to send their children to charter or gifted and talented schools located outside of the neighborhood. Given this outflow of parents and resources via school choice, most of the gentrifier parents in the sample who went “against the grain” and opted into the local schools viewed their choice as a politically charged decision, and they credited a parent advocacy group as having influenced it.

The concluding article is a literature review on gentrification and schools. There has been increased interest in gentrification’s effects on urban public schools in recent years, and this article analyzes whose stories are being explored and the main findings from extant research. We chose to end with Bradley Quarles and Alisha Butler’s recommendation for a multi-vocal research agenda as both a call to action and a critique of our own work herein, given the need for more voices on the tensions between neighborhood schools and school choice that these scholars underscore.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the editors at the Peabody Journal of Education for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier manuscript drafts.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ryan Coughlan

Ryan W. Coughlan is an assistant professor of sociology at Guttman Community College, City University of New York, who studies the social context of schooling. Dr. Coughlan's research uses geospatial statistical methods to study school zoning practices, patterns of school segregation, educational outcomes, and social bonds between neighborhoods and schools. Along with his research on the social context of schooling, Dr. Coughlan has edited and authored books on the history of progressive education, the social foundations of education, and the sociology of education. His research has been featured in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and on NPR's All Things Considered. Dr. Coughlan earned his Ph.D. in Urban Systems with a concentration in Urban Education from Rutgers University, Newark.

Molly Vollman Makris

Molly Vollman Makris is an assistant professor of urban studies at Guttman Community College, City University of New York, where she currently serves as program coordinator for urban studies. She holds a Ph.D. in Urban Systems from Rutgers University. She is the author of Public Housing and School Choice in a Gentrified City: Youth Experiences of Uneven Opportunity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and co-author of the recent articles “A Different Type of Charter School: In Prestige Charters, a Rise in Cachet Equals a Decline in Access” (Journal of Education Policy, 2017) and “School Development in Urban Gentrifying Spaces: Developers Supporting Schools or Schools Supporting Developers?” (Journal of Urban Affairs, 2017). Her research interests are urban education reform, school segregation, public housing, gentrification, and the privatization of public education, housing, and space.

Allison Roda

Allison Roda is an assistant professor of education at Molloy College in the Educational Leadership for Diverse Learning Communities Ed.D. program. Roda’s research and teaching interests are focused on urban education policy, educational stratification, families and schools, and qualitative research methods. She is the author of Inequality in Gifted and Talented Programs: Parental Choices About Status, School Opportunity, and Second-Generation Segregation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Roda’s work has appeared in Teachers College Record, the Journal of Education Policy, and Quartz, and she has co-authored articles with Amy Stuart Wells in Review of Research in Education and American Journal of Education. The Century Foundation and the Hechinger Report have also published her works. Roda received her Ph.D. in Sociology and Education from Columbia University.