BOULDER, CO (February 13, 2024) – Housing, land use, and zoning policies are often siloed in such a way that they are considered and addressed separately from school segregation and students’ opportunities to learn. But these policy areas can interact in powerful ways. Professor Genevieve Siegel-Hawley of Virginia Commonwealth University explores how in a new NEPC policy brief, The Potential for Land Use and Housing Reform to Address School Segregation and Educational Opportunity, in which she examines the potential of housing and land use policy reform to address school segregation.
Professor Siegel-Hawley describes the key role that has been played by discriminatory land use planning and zoning regulations. These laws contributed to the unequal wealth distribution currently afflicting the nation, and those inequities—as well as those laws themselves—now shape access to an array of public goods, including schools. Neighborhood-based school assignment creates a direct link between segregated housing and segregated schools. More positively, zoning initiatives in recent years have proliferated to roll back the use of land for exclusionary purposes, with important implications for schools.
This policy brief attempts to break down the siloes separating land use and zoning policies from school segregation discussions and interventions. Drawing on multiple bodies of literature, it explores what we know about the potential of housing and land use policy reform to address school segregation—and why doing so matters. The research reviewed here illuminates the close historical and legal relationship between school and housing segregation and the clear links between land use policy and school and housing segregation. Studies also show that where land use or housing reforms have enabled greater access to less segregated schools, historically marginalized students’ outcomes have improved. Although the reforms and, by extension, the research, are somewhat limited, it suggests that land use and housing policy has the potential to more broadly reduce school segregation and improve student outcomes.
To this end, Professor Siegel-Hawley concludes with recommendations for federal and state policymakers to offer pathways to diverse, well-resourced schools for historically marginalized families, along with oversight and enforcement that considers school-housing interrelationships.
Find The Potential for Land Use and Housing Reform to Address School Segregation and Educational Opportunity, by Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/school-segregation