Anonymous wrote:See this recent report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights - examining education funding and economic and racial segregation:
https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2018/2018-01-10-Education-Inequity.pdf
Chapter 4, page 102-103 cites a study of MoCo:
Advocates who promote linking steps to affirmatively further fair housing to efforts to increase equitable educational opportunity point to one documented success story in Montgomery County,
MD, a neighboring suburban county to the District of Columbia. Montgomery County is one of the wealthiest counties in the U.S., and has a highly-rated school district. The county has a well established zoning policy that allows approximately one-third of its housing units to operate as federally subsidized public housing, affording opportunities to low-income families to reside in
wealthier neighborhoods and send their children to better schools. Heather Schwartz, an education policy researcher, examined the longitudinal effects of Montgomery County’s
integrative housing policy over a 5-7 year period, and found the following:
? Students in public housing assigned to low-poverty schools performed better in math and
reading than students in public housing assigned to moderate-poverty schools
? The county’s inclusionary zoning program has been successful in integrating families into
low-poverty communities on the long-term, thus allowing children to have long-term
exposure to schools in low-poverty communities
? The achievement level of students in public housing rose due to residential stability
? Students in public housing benefited more academically from exposure to low-poverty
schools than from exposure to low-poverty neighborhoods
Heather Schwartz concluded, “Since education is an investment with both individual and societal
benefits, improving low-income students’ school achievement via integrative housing is a tool that
not only can reduce the income achievement gap but also can help stem future poverty.”
Citation to study: Heather Schwartz, “Housing Policy Is School Policy: Economically Integrative Housing Promotes Academic
Success in Montgomery County, Maryland” The Century Foundation,
https://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcfSchwartz.pdf.