Segregation and School Funding: How Housing Discrimination Reproduces Unequal Opportunity

Event Overview

Almost 70 years after the Brown decision, segregation continues to fuel unequal educational opportunity in the United States. In the vast majority of the nation's metropolitan areas, students of color are concentrated in certain school districts, which also tend to have higher poverty and less wealth than their mostly white counterparts just a short drive away. This interplay of racial and economic segregation increases costs and depresses revenue in districts serving larger minority populations, creating a self-sustaining cycle of unequal resources and unequal outcomes. 

The panel discussed the historical and contemporary relationship between racial segregation and K-12 school funding. Their discussion was framed by the Institute's new report which presents both national results as well as case studies of seven major metropolitan areas, using data on outcomes ranging from housing values to K-12 funding adequacy to the “redlining” maps used by the federal government to assess lending risk during the late 1930s.

Panelists also discussed how segregation shapes racial discrepancies in the adequacy of school resources, as well as how this relationship reflects the ongoing legacy of over a century of institutional housing discrimination strategies, some of which are still prevalent today.

Read the Report