The Frankenmuth School District has about 1,400 students, nearly 91 percent of whom are white. Its poverty rate is about 5 percent. In contrast, to the west, the Saginaw City School District is home to nearly 5,200 students, 81 percent of them students of color. Its poverty rate is 50 percent.
This large economic and racial divide between two adjacent Michigan districts shows that school segregation persists into the 21st century.
That is one of the main findings of a new report from researchers at the New America think tank.
In about 60 pages, the researchers analyzed 24,658 pairs of districts that share a border.
On average, they found that neighboring school districts differ in student poverty rates by 5 percentage points. But some pairs of districts revealed much higher levels of economic segregation, such as Frankenmuth and Saginaw, whose poverty rates differ by about 45 percentage points.
The researchers point out that the inequalities they uncover in the report are not inevitable. They are simply products of government policies (such as the decision to link school funding to housing wealth) and policies can be changed.
“States do not need to continue making policy decisions that entrench these deep divisions between districts,” the researchers write. “There are better options: more inclusive district maps, more equitable and sensible approaches to increasing school revenue, and funding systems that support students based on their needs, not the wealth of their communities.”
Racist roots
School district boundaries generally align with city boundaries. Since a large portion of school funding comes from property taxes, that can lead to funding disparities even between neighboring districts.
These disparities date back to racist housing practices of the 20th century, such as contracts that prevented homeowners from selling to black buyers, segregated development funded by federal dollars, and “urban renewal” policies that displaced black residents.
The researchers found that the modern effects of these policies are still at play on Long Island, New York, where the division between the Brentwood Union Free School District and the West Islip Free School District is one of the most segregated in the country (located (ranked 34th out of the 100 most racially segregated).
Brentwood students are 86 percent Latino and 35 percent English learners, according to the report, while West Islip students are 82 percent white and 1 percent English learners. Eleven percent of Brentwood students live below the federal poverty line, which the report calls “a staggering number given nearby economic resources.” Less than 3 percent of West Islip students live below the poverty line.
Despite receiving less state funding, West Islip's real estate wealth more than makes up the difference. Between state and local revenue, “Brentwood Union students receive about 71 cents for every dollar given to West Islip students,” according to the report.
But it doesn't have to remain that way.
“Like school funding distributions, district boundaries are a product of state policy,” the authors write. “State laws specify how these lines are drawn and the processes and requirements for changing them. “District boundaries can be redrawn and border policies changed to produce better outcomes for students and their schools.”
More money, more expenses
In some cases, higher-poverty school districts end up receiving more per-pupil funding than their wealthier neighbors once state funding is taken into account. But often, students have complex needs and families are more reliant on schools for support.
The Wahluke and Kittitas school districts operate in rural Washington, about 100 miles southeast of Seattle. Student poverty rates are about 12 percent and 8 percent respectively, but the Wahluke School District is made up of nearly 99 percent students of color, compared to 23 percent in Kittitas.
The Wahluke community is home to taxpayers who are unlikely to raise property taxes to support increased school funding, according to the report, such as farm owners who do not live nearby and residents of retirement communities. Another funding challenge researchers cite is that residents living in the country without legal permission fear responding to the census, “which reduces the amount the district receives through federal funding formulas.”
“The majority of students come from immigrant families who have come to the area to work in agriculture,” say Wahluke School District researchers. “The district spends a significant portion of its budget on bilingual education, translation services and family engagement. “Many parents in the district have come to the United States specifically so their children can have a better education, and the schools are essential to the community.”
Different solutions for states
Researchers say solutions to long-standing inequality problems will have to vary based on needs within each state. One option is to change school district boundaries to include a better mix of areas with high and low property values. Another is stopping or limiting the use of property taxes to fund schools, which could mean dividing the money at the state level or pooling property tax money between wealthy and impoverished districts.
“For too many years, student education has been defined by geographies of exclusion and difference,” the researchers conclude. “It's time to draw the line.”
Inequalities are not just numbers on a spreadsheet. Ultimately, they affect the lives and experiences of real students like Julian Morris, a high school student in Saginaw City.
Its Michigan school district topped the report's list of economically segregated school districts compared to one of its neighbors, the Frankenmuth School District, whose motto appears in bright red letters on its website: “Where effort opens opportunity.” (The Saginaw City School District appears on that list five times more because of its stratified poverty rate compared to other bordering districts.)
However, from Julian's perspective, student effort is not really what makes the difference.
“Students in the city are highly motivated to succeed,” Morris explains in the report. “They want to maximize their opportunities in school. But we don't really get what we need to prepare for college or to do well there. We meet the requirements (four years of mathematics, three years of science, a foreign language), but it is just the basics, the minimum.”
