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A look at the positive effects of school integration and the lengths people will go to prevent it from happening. CW: This story begins with the murder of Michael Brown

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Norman Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With," depicting Ruby Bridges, the first Black child to attend an all white elementary school in the South.

Artwork approved by The Norman Rockwell Family Agency.

More in this Series

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Staff Recommendations

Favorite stories by our longtime contributor and friend David Rakoff.

We spent five months at a high school in Chicago where in the last year 29 current and recent students were shot.

Ira speaks with New York Times Magazine Reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones about her years reporting on education and the various kinds of school reforms administrators have tried to close the achievement gap that never seem to work. Nikole says there's one reform that people have pretty much given up on, despite a lot of evidence that it works - school integration. (11 minutes)

Nikole Hannah-Jones reports on a school district that accidentally stumbled on an integration program in recent years. It's the Normandy School District in Normandy, Missouri. Normandy is on the border of Ferguson, Missouri, and the district includes the high school that Michael Brown attended. (30 minutes)

Nikole Hannah-Jones' story on the Normandy school district from the first part of the show continues. (14 minutes)

Nikole also wrote about Normandy for ProPublica, and she wrote an incredibly memorable story about choosing a school for her own daughter for The New York Times.

And Elisa Crouch's article in St Louis Dispatch that documented the day in the life of one Normandy senior is here.

Favorite stories by our longtime contributor and friend David Rakoff.

We spent five months at a high school in Chicago where in the last year 29 current and recent students were shot.

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The Problem We All Live With - Part One - This American Life

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There's one thing that has been proven to cut the achievement gap between black and white students by half: integration.

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Overview of White Citizens' Councils- PBS

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Overview of White Citizens' Councils- PBS

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The Murder of Emmett Till | Article

White Citizens' Councils

The Brown v Board of Education decision was a watershed moment in American history. On May 17, 1954, in an unprecedented decision, the Supreme Court abolished legal school segregation. Blacks hailed the decision. Whites in the Deep South called the day "Black Monday." Some white Southerners channeled their ire into a new movement called Citizens' Councils - organizations of white segregationists and supremacists who opposed integration and the Supreme Court decision.

Harold P. Boulware, Thurgood Marshall, and Spottswood W. Robinson III confer at the Supreme Court prior to presenting arguments against segregation in schools during Brown v. Board of Education case, 1953. Courtesy: Library of Congress

Racist Ideology
The movement, led by Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Tom P. Brady, grew to encompass virtually the state's entire white business class. Council members published a book entitled Black Monday which outlined their simple beliefs: African Americans were inferior to whites and the races must remain separate. "If in one mighty voice we do not protest this travesty on justice, we might as well surrender," Brady wrote.

The "Uptown Klan"
The first Citizens' Council meeting was convened two months after the Brown v. Board of Education decision in a living room in Indianola, the heart of the Mississippi Delta. Soon hundreds of chapters with thousands of members spread like wildfire across the South. Members would meet regularly in living rooms and send in donations. The group even had weekly TV and radio programs, and states would sponsor promotional films spotlighting the benefits of segregation. The Councils' view of themselves as a cut above the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan gained them the title "uptown Klan."

Spying and Intimidation
The councils picked up momentum and legitimacy in 1956 when the Mississippi legislature formed the State Sovereignty Commission. The Sovereignty Commission contributed funds to the Citizens' Councils and formed a covert network that tracked blacks and whites. Blacks in favor of integration or seen trying to register black voters would lose their jobs, their homes, even their lives. White businessmen would face boycotts and politicians would lose votes if they were believed to be sympathetic to African Americans' efforts at integration.

Violence
The Citizens' Councils claimed they did not sanction violence, but the venom spouted at their meetings and from their leaders, particularly Mississippi's segregationist senator and plantation owner James O. Eastland, fostered a violent, reactionary climate where punishment against blacks was sanctioned.

The Councils' grip on Mississippi was effective. By 1956, they claimed a membership of 80,000. Schools remained overwhelmingly segregated and black voter registration drives were thwarted. In 1959 the Councils played a crucial role in electing staunch segregationist Ross Barnett to the Governor's office.

The Councils' Legacy
Today the Council of Conservative Citizens carries the torch of the Citizens' Councils. "Promoting the interests of European Americans," the anti-civil rights and anti-immigrant group advocates for its ideas in chapters throughout the South.

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White Citizens' Councils | American Experience | PBS

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The Murder of Emmett Till | Article The Brown v Board of Education decision was a watershed moment in American history. On May 17, 1954, in an unprecedented decision, the Supreme Court abolished legal school segregation. Blacks hailed the decision. Whites in the Deep South called the day "Black Monday."

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How School Districts Find Residency Fraud

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How School Districts Find Residency Fraud

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Every year, hundreds of kids are kicked out of suburban Philadelphia school districts for residency fraud. Maybe even thousands. This little-discussed corner of the K-12 landscape contains so many of the issues that shape education in Pennsylvania today. WHYY explored the topic of disenrollment in our series, "Kicked Out." This is part two. You can read part one here, about how some school districts in the Philadelphia suburbs are disproportionately removing students of color. To listen to the radio version of this story, click on the play button above.
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On a recent weekday afternoon, Tina Blanchette is doing what a lot of moms do on weekday afternoons: waiting in a suburban parking lot for a kid to arrive.

While idling in her inconspicuous, white SUV, we chat about her interests ("Game of Thrones," audiobooks) and her three children (precocious, perpetually overscheduled). Midway through a sighing soliloquy about travel soccer, Blanchette spots a Lexus as it scoots past us.

Her voice drops to a whisper.
"That's our boy..."
Here is where Blanchette's parking-lot loitering takes a turn from the ordinary. She whips out a small camcorder and films a teenage boy as he steps out of the Lexus and into a two-story townhome.

"The closer he comes, the better for me," Blanchette says aloud. "Totally our kid."

When she isn't shuttling kids to practice or binge-watching HBO, Blanchette is a private eye.

She wanted to be a ballerina. After an injury and career detour, she eventually became a secretary at the West Chester firm ELPS Private Detective Agency, filing paperwork, answering phones, and overhearing incomplete tidbits of ongoing cases.

"I'd be listening, and I'd be like, 'Ahh, I wanna figure out,' " she says. " 'I want to get online. I want to run the data searches.' "

Eventually her boss, Jeff Stein, gave her that chance. Blanchette spends a lot of time tailing unfaithful spouses or catching workers who lie about their injuries to collect disability checks. Stein specializes in criminal defense work.

"Most of my clients are in prison for murder," he says, with the flat affect of a practiced detective.

Recently, though, he's gotten more work from local school districts.

"I would say in the last five years, there's been an increase," Stein says. "You're seeing more private investigators get involved in this."

There are 63 school districts in the four collar counties surrounding Philadelphia, and nearly all of them spend time and money making sure students from outside the district don't try to sneak in. Enforcement is necessary, administrators say, to ensure that legal residents - and legal residents alone - receive the benefits of their tax dollars. Several district officials said they've increased their vigilance in recent years. And the trend isn't limited to Pennsylvania. Districts around the region - from Washington, D.C. to New Jersey - use private investigators.

The cost of residency enforcement

Stein ties the uptick to financial stress caused by the great recession. With dollars tight, he says, school districts felt compelled to crack down on fraudsters. If Stein's private eyes can prove a student lives outside district boundaries, that's one less student the district has to pay to educate.

Others think the tightening economy caused more household disruption and, thus, more displaced parents looking for ways into higher-performing school districts.

"The economy has displaced families resulting in multiple occupancies, intergenerational residencies, things of that nature," said Samuel Lee, superintendent of the Bensalem School District in Bucks County. "I don't think that's unique to us."

Over the last 14 months, Stein estimates his firm has conducted 20 investigations and uncovered 10 students whose families lied about their address to sneak into a school district.

With many suburban districts paying $20,000 per pupil, Stein estimates that removing 10 students could save a district $200,000. His services cost less, somewhere between $750 and $4,000, depending on the length of the investigation, which can take between 10 and 60 hours of detective work.

The reality is likely more complex than Stein's back-of-the-napkin math. A district would need to remove scores of students in order to reduce labor costs, and, even then, taxpayers would still be stuck with less fungible expenses such as building maintenance.

"We're not moving out thousands of children," said Lee Ann Wentzel, who runs the Ridley School District in Delaware County. "To really make a ... major fiscal impact, you're going to have to move out a big block of children."

Still, districts might have a fiscal incentive to enforce the rules. Publicized vigilance can deter families from trying to cheat the system, just as lax enforcement could eventually result in a financially significant flood of students from out of district.

"It's a deterrent," said David Woods, superintendent of the Oxford Area School District in Chester County. "The fact that we do check up serves as a deterrent to folks that don't live here who want to play with the system."

Some administrators, including Frank Bruno with the William Penn School District in Delaware County, want to publicize their enforcement as much as possible.

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Kicked Out - How school districts find and prove residency fraud

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Every year, hundreds of kids are kicked out of suburban Philadelphia school districts for residency fraud. Maybe even thousands. This little-discussed corner of the K-12 landscape contains so many of the issues that shape education in Pennsylvania today. WHYY explored the topic of disenrollment in our series, "Kicked Out."

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Logo of the Citizens' Councils, a Southern organization founded in Mississippi in direct response to the Brown V. Board of Education ruling. The organization spread across the Delta, working against integration.

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Logo of the Citizens' Councils, a Southern organization founded in Mississippi in direct response to the Brown V. Board of Education ruling. The organization spread across the Delta, working against integration.

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https://mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/issue/the-citizens-council

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The story of Kelley Williams-Bolar, a Black women who was imprisoned for using her fathers address to enroll her children in school.

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Kelley Williams-Bolar, like Felicity Huffman, was punished for trying to get her children a better education.

A few months ago, Kelley Williams-Bolar started getting phone calls in the middle of the night, telling her she was on the news again. People were tagging her on Facebook and mentioning her on Twitter. "Honestly, I didn't put the two together! I didn't think other people would put the two together!" she told me this week.

The "two together" are Williams-Bolar and Felicity Huffman. Both are committed mothers of daughters. Both are working women. Both have become national-media sensations. Both are accused of committing crimes to obtain a better education for their children.

But Williams-Bolar and Huffman are not so much analogues as funhouse-mirror versions of each other, their stories of justice and injustice similar and yet distorted and converse. Huffman, who starred on Desperate Housewives, has admitted to paying $15,000 for a proctor to correct her daughter's standardized-test scores. She was swept up in the " Varsity Blues" investigation into corruption, bribery, and fraud in elite-college admissions, and today she received a two-week sentence. A decade ago, Williams-Bolar was a single, black mother living in public housing. In 2011, the state of Ohio convicted and imprisoned her for falsifying her address to get her kids into better public schools. At Huffman's sentencing hearing, a federal prosecutor cited Williams-Bolar's case, calling prison the "great leveler."

One is a story of a family having everything and wanting more, exemplifying the opportunity-hoarding of America's often-unaccountable 1 percenters. The other is a story of a family working with what they had, seeking opportunity amid the deep forces of segregation, wealth inequality, and public underinvestment.

Williams-Bolar did not mean to become a cause célèbre any more than Huffman; she did not even realize she was doing anything wrong at the time. Having divorced her abusive spouse, she was attending the University of Akron, working as a teacher's aide, and raising her daughters, Kayla and Jada. She wanted to become a teacher, as well as a homeowner, she told me, and she wanted to raise her daughters in better circumstances than she grew up in.

That meant seeking better options than the low-performing Akron public schools her daughters were attending. At one of them, the "ceiling [was] falling in," she said: extensive water damage, mold, old and outdated textbooks, overworked teachers, unruly classrooms. Her kids were struggling. "My girls were very mild-especially my youngest one; she was a tiny little thing," she said. "When my girls started getting bullied, I said no."

Williams-Bolar's father, Edward Williams, who lived nearby, spent ample time taking care of the girls. Williams-Bolar split time between the two homes herself - especially after her house was burglarized. The family decided to enroll the girls in school using his address in the nearby Copley-Fairlawn school district, which met all of Ohio's 26 educational standards, whereas the Akron schools met only four. "The bullying helped push me over the edge to say, Well, my dad can take care of them. He can see that they get off and on the bus safely. He can watch them while I'm in college," Williams-Bolar told me.

She loved that in the suburbs the girls were going to classrooms with far more resources. "That school out in Copley-they had acres of land. They had greenhouses! They had an experience that inner-city kids would never understand, you see," she told me. "It was so fabulous-science and everything else too. But the science was what took me overboard. I was like: Look at this! They've got a greenhouse and it's beautiful! "

What the Williams-Bolar family engaged in is called "boundary hopping" or "district hopping"-or, when it gets caught in the legal system, "residency fraud" or "enrollment fraud." There are no hard numbers on how common it is, but it is very, very common, educational experts believe, particularly where high-achieving and low-achieving school districts abut one another and where inequality is acute. One survey of public schools in Berkeley, California, for instance, suggested that 8 to 12 percent of enrolled students lived out-of-bounds.

What is uncommon is for parents to be charged with a felony for engaging in the practice, rather than having their children unenrolled or being fined or, perhaps most likely, the school district looking the other way. After her kids started in the Copley-Fairlawn schools, Williams-Bolar noticed someone following her and worried she was being stalked. She started carrying mace. That "stalker" was a private investigator hired by the school district to prove that Williams-Bolar's girls were out-of-bounds.

Things spiraled from there: Williams-Bolar and her father were charged with felonies related to the falsification of records and theft of public education. They fought the charges, believing that they had done nothing wrong. The jury in Edward Williams's trial failed to reach a verdict; Williams-Bolar was convicted of some charges and handed two concurrent five-year sentences, suspended down to 10 days. The judge presiding over her case argued that "others who think they might defraud the school system perhaps will think twice."

If we have little hard data on boundary-hopping, we have even less on punishments for boundary-hopping. But some researchers argue that school districts have become more aggressive in identifying out-of-bounds students, purging them, and legally threatening their parents. And it looks like the students who get bounced are disproportionately low-income and nonwhite, as are the parents who end up enmeshed in the justice system.

Around the same time that Williams-Bolar went to trial, Tonya McDowell, a homeless single mother in Connecticut, was convicted on similar charges. She ended up in jail; the friend who let her use her address for enrollment purposes wound up homeless and briefly lost custody of her own children.

Williams-Bolar and McDowell made their choices in an educational system rife with inequalities, among them deeply unequal per-pupil financing and persistent school segregation. School districts have a way of turning a public good into a private good. Rich families enroll their kids in neighborhood schools, hoarding opportunity through boundary enforcement, zoning laws, real-estate prices, and redlining. The structure of education financing gives parents a sense of entitlement and ownership: They pay for schools with their mortgages and property taxes, and therefore the school is theirs. (Of course, the math is more complicated than that.) In-boundary parents are often the initiators of boundary-hopping investigations; they believe that out-of-boundary parents are stealing.

Boundary-hopping does stress school districts, crowding classrooms and frustrating administrators. It also diverts much-needed funding from lower-performing schools, in some cases. But a good public education is meant to belong to everyone. And as a single mother in school herself, Williams-Bolar could not have made rent, let alone purchased a home, in a tony suburban school district.

Rich families have the option of pulling their kids out of public schools and putting them in private or parochial ones, as well as the option of moving to a better district. Rich families have the option of coaching their kids through standardized tests, and helping ensure they get into gifted and talented programs and specialized schools. Rich families have the resources to investigate what different public schools offer, and to game lottery and ranked-choice enrollment systems. Later on in their kids' lives, rich families have the ability to provide tax-deductible gifts to colleges to get mediocre students accepted. Rich families sometimes skirt the law, too - cheating on standardized tests, making up their kids' athletic accomplishments, paying bribes.

Poor families have far fewer options-boundary-hopping, for many, is one of the few ways to get into a better school district. Moreover, given that low-income families often have unstable housing situations and use intergenerational child-care structures, what might seem like enrollment fraud to a school district might feel like nothing more than school choice to a parent. Signing her kids up for school with her dad just made sense, Williams-Bolar stressed.

For that decision, she ended up in jail, even though she had never been arrested, let alone convicted of a crime, she said. She sobbed for hours when she arrived in her holding cell. She lost 15 pounds, unable to bring herself to eat. "When I was walking into general population, I walked through the door and smelled a smell-not like a dead rat, or mold, or this or that," she said. "No, it had its own distinctive smell. And it smelled like sin. I said that to the sheriff, and she told me: 'You're not the first person who has told me that.'"

She was never the same after that trauma, she told me. She spent years and years struggling with depression, shame, and regret. Her father ended up dying in prison on unrelated charges. Her girls ended up back in the struggling Akron schools. A few months after she was released, then-Governor John Kasich provided her with partial clemency, reducing her felonies to misdemeanors.

Never the same, she still pushes forward. Williams-Bolar has become an advocate for social justice, criminal-justice reform, and public education. She speaks at churches, colleges, and high schools. She lobbies for states to lower penalties for parents engaging in boundary-hopping. And she works in the Akron public schools as a teacher's assistant, helping kids with behavioral challenges.

"These kids have gone through so much," she told me. "They've been in foster care. They've been abused at home. They have a parent in prison. I can talk to them and I can tell them my background, and that resonates with some of these kids to the point where they will build a bond with me. You don't understand what that does for me-to see that I can break through to a kid who's reserved, and has all these issues going on."

Both Felicity Huffman and Kelley Williams-Bolar, from their very different vantage points, tried to take advantage of a system they knew to be unfair. In both cases, the real scandal is what is legal, and the real victims the kids deprived of opportunity by dint of their family's bank account and address.

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Kelley Williams-Bolar, like Felicity Huffman, was punished for trying to get her children a better education.

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The Attorney General for Washington, D.C. as many as 30% of the student body of D.C.'s prestigious Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts announced last week that he was suing six Maryland Parents for lying about their addresses to gain access to Washington, D.C. public schools. This story has been percolating since the end of last school year when it came out that actually lived outside of the district and were illegally claiming DC residency to get into the school.

Lying about one's residence to gain access to a public school is called enrollment fraud (or residency fraud) and it is something that is more common than you might think. Philadelphia public radio station WHYY did an in-depth story about enrollment fraud back in May that is worth listening to. They even shadowed an investigator who follows students home from school and videotapes them taking out the trash and walking dogs to prove that they are not living where they say that they are.

A simple google search on the term turns up stories from all over the country. The San Francisco Unified School District identified more than 50 cases in 2017-18. Fraud Magazine devoted to identifying and preventing it. In 2015, the Hechinger Report detailed numerous cases, including some where the perpetrators went to jail. In a wild twist, according to Washington Post reporting, some of the alleged perpetrators of enrollment fraud in Washington DC have been district employees, including one former teacher of the year.

Districts across the country hire private investigators to make sure that students live where they say that they do. Extensive efforts are undertaken to ensure that the only students who are enrolled in a district live within its boundaries.

School district lines often act as invisible barriers to opportunity. Many poor families find themselves on the outside looking in. Prosecuting families that pierce those barriers through nefarious means raises questions that cut to the very heart of our notions of public schooling. Aren't public schools supposed to take all comers? Aren't they supposed to be working to limit inequality, not exacerbate it? What would Horace Mann, father of "Common Schools," say?

Let's be clear. These families are committing fraud. Fraud is not a victimless crime. Residents of the school district that families are lying about living in tax themselves to educate their own children and fraud takes money from that. While folks might not think that the system is just, it is the system, and until the system is changed, citizens should do their best to live according to its laws. Given the realities of school funding and school assignment, it is not unreasonable for school districts to only want to educate the children that live within their borders.

That said, if you take a moment and empathize with many of these families, you can see what a terrible position they're in. They don't have the money to move to a better school district, or send their child to private school, or homeschool them. They know, in their bones, that their child's potential is being circumscribed before their very eyes. Public schools are not a great equalizer for them. In fact, they are the exact opposite.

It's a cliché, but the classic question of ethics "would you steal bread to feed your starving family?" comes close to applying here. What would you do if you thought that your child was doomed to an inferior education?

To save you from having to linger uncomfortably on that ethical dilemma, I'll just say this: Enrollment fraud is an example of where the reality of public schooling conflicts with the rhetoric of public schooling. No, great public schools aren't always open to all comers. Public schools can, and do, act to exacerbate inequality. School choice is not something that only occurs when a state allows for charter schools or starts a voucher program.

In fact, the debate around school choice in this country would vastly improve if all of us were simply more honest about the de facto school choice programs that already exist in our communities. Rather than acting like a state "gets" school choice the day that a charter school law is passed, we would recognize that many Americans, from suburbanites to posh urbanites ensconced in exclusive attendance zone enclaves, exercise school choice. The fact that people want to choose a school increases the value of homes within its attendance zone. That premium keeps poor children out of that school. It functions like tuition, making a public school a private one. And this doesn't even touch those for whom attendance zones don't apply because they are politically connected, which is a worrisome feature of the educational landscape as well.

The real debate in America is not whether or not we should have school choice, but who should have school choice and what choices should be available to all citizens, regardless of wealth or political connection.

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Enrollment Fraud Reminds Us That Many Public Schools Aren't Public

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The Attorney General for Washington, D.C. as many as 30% of the student body of D.C.'s prestigious Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts announced last week that he was suing six Maryland Parents for lying about their addresses to gain access to Washington, D.C. public schools.

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Can Your Child Go To School Outside Their District?- US News

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Can Your Child Go To School Outside Their District?- US News

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When Diana Herrera and her son decided to leave the private high school he was attending in order to attend a public school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, they first had to do their homework.

"We were concerned that the school in our assigned boundary was too big," Herrera says. "We contacted our district, and they gave us three schools to choose from - that's it. In the end, we selected a high school that was a good 20 miles from our house because it met our son's needs, and we liked the atmosphere there after we visited with the administration."

More American families than ever are actively choosing to send their children to public schools outside their assigned neighborhood districts. Thanks to a wave of state legislation and regulation in recent years, the decision on which school to attend is increasingly in the hands of parents rather than district officials and school boundary maps.

States that give students the option to transfer call it open enrollment, a growing educational policy in nearly every state. Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia have policies that address open enrollment in some way. Only Alabama, Maryland and North Carolina do not.

Understanding Open Enrollment

The rules on open enrollment, and the process required, will look different state to state, and sometimes even district to district. There are two basic types of policies:

Intradistrict. This allows students to transfer to another school within their resident school district.

Interdistrict. This allows students to transfer to a school outside of their resident district.

Depending on the state, open enrollment policies are mandatory, voluntary or both.

Mandatory policies. These require all schools or districts to accept transfer students, although mandatory policies may be subject to restrictions.

Voluntary policies. These allow districts to choose whether to participate in open enrollment, often allowing school districts the discretion to enter into transfer agreements with other districts.

Some states require mandatory open enrollment in low-performing districts, in defined regions of the state or in specific circumstances, while allowing voluntary open enrollment in the rest of the state, according to a report by the Education Commission of the States.

And states continue to change their policies. For example, the Ohio state legislature, in its upcoming session, will decide if the state should move from voluntary open enrollment to mandatory, requiring all districts to participate.

The Real School Choice

So, can your child go to school outside their district? There is a very good chance they can, though there may be rules and restrictions, and these may be different depending on your location.

"Open enrollment is where most students and families make use of school choice," says Deven Carlson , an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma and director of education at the National Institute of Risk and Resilience. "It exists widely and doesn't get much attention. But it certainly is here to stay."

Ben Erwin, a policy analyst at the Education Commission of the States, says open enrollment policies vary greatly in different states and localities.

"An open enrollment popular in one locale or state may not be feasible in another," Erwin says. "In Wisconsin, there is a limit to the number of students who move outside of assigned boundaries, but that's not everywhere. Open enrollment is discussed in many educational contexts and will vary by individual area and locale."

Many things can cause parents to attempt to use open enrollment policies. In some cases, families move but want to keep their children in the same school. In other cases, they want to change schools without moving. Carlson says parents can have many different motivations.

"Usually there is some combination of quality, convenience and extra programs behind a family's decision," he says. "Certainly, they want access to a school they perceive to be better. Perhaps they want the school to be on their way to work. Maybe they are looking at extra-curricular or scholastic programs that aren't offered at their current school or district. Each family may have a specific motivation."

Charter schools and magnet schools, which often promote special programs or specific educational philosophies, are the forefathers of open enrollment policy. Schools like this stood out as unique and appealed to family interests and needs.

While charter schools and school vouchers have captured most of the headlines when it comes to school choice, open enrollment policies have flown under the radar as a way for families to find the right school fit for their children, Carlson says.

"Open enrollment is not only being widely used," he says, "it is expanding."

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Can Your Child Go to School Outside Their District?

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When Diana Herrera and her son decided to leave the private high school he was attending in order to attend a public school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, they first had to do their homework. "We were concerned that the school in our assigned boundary was too big," Herrera says.

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The primary community a child belongs to outside of her family is her school community. Under the best circumstances the school community positively contributes to a child's socialization, academic outcomes,¹ skill development,² and social mobility. Schools can provide a platform for students and their families to build bonding and bridging social capital, and they act as stabilizing institutions that provide supportive social networks for families.³

About 90 percent of American students are educated at public schools, and 9 percent at private schools.⁴ Public education has traditionally been tied directly to housing through residential assignment policies that assign homes to schools via school attendance zones. School zones are typically designed so that students attend schools near home, and despite growing opportunities to opt out or choose another school via charters, magnets, and public school open enrollment policies, 71 percent of students attend their assigned public school.⁵

Families with children predictably take housing selection seriously, as housing often determines children's access to educational opportunities. A nationally representative survey of homebuyers found half of households with children consider school district quality when selecting a neighborhood during home buying⁶ and a recent study found low-income families with Section 8 housing vouchers cited "better schools" as their primary motive for moving neighborhoods.⁷ However, many Americans say they are prevented from moving to a better neighborhood due to high housing costs.⁸

This paper explores the relationship between housing and public education and finds the average U.S. ZIP code associated with the highest quality (A+) public elementary school has a 4-fold ($486,104) higher median home price than the average neighborhood associated with the lowest quality (D or less) public elementary schools ($122,061).

In a cross-city comparison, major cities with more restrictive residential zoning are less effective at providing high quality public education at a low, affordable price. Portland, Oregon features traditional residential assignment policies, restrictive residential zoning, and high, climbing average home values across increasing school quality levels.

In contrast, Houston and Chicago, two major cities with less restrictive residential zoning, do a better job delivering access to high quality public schools than comparison cities with restrictive residential zoning, keeping home prices low and affordability high across school quality levels. As anticipated, cities with open enrollment or districtwide lotteries exhibit flatter relationships between home values and school quality.

Since housing is the traditional gateway to public education, this paper suggests policymakers consider improving access to educational opportunity by minimizing residential zoning while expanding public school choice policies. Reforming residential zoning supports public school choice efforts by permitting a variety of housing throughout school zones, reducing prices, and improving affordability at every school quality level.

Background

Housing and education policy are frequently treated separately by policy makers, although they are practically enmeshed. Part of the relationship between housing and schools exists de facto, as students will naturally attend schools that are within commuting distance of their homes and research suggests school quality is partly capitalized into home prices.⁹

However, housing's relationship to schools is also a policy choice: districts have traditionally drawn school boundaries by neighborhood and assigned students to schools by home address, even when other options are more convenient or appealing to families. Meanwhile, residential zoning regulations control the type, size, and amount of homes built in different school zones and segregate cities by income within and across metropolitan areas.¹⁰ Research finds housing characteristics vary systematically across school zones, with larger houses and single family homes more common within high performing school boundaries,¹¹ and larger housing cost gaps exist across high and low quality schools in areas with more restrictive residential zoning.¹²

Education reform efforts have worked to address disparities in opportunity and untether housing from schools in a variety of ways. Charter schools, magnet schools, and districtwide lotteries decouple housing from schools within a specified area. More limited transfer opportunities including attendance waivers are available within districts or between districts in some places.¹³ Educational savings accounts (ESAs) and school vouchers provide private school opportunities outside the traditional public education system.¹⁴

Many of these strategies reduce the link between housing and public education on the margin, but the traditional relationship persists: although 9 percent of K-12 students attend a private school, and 20 percent attend a chosen public school, 71 percent of students still attend their assigned public school.¹⁵ Housing still effectively acts as a gateway to educational opportunity for a majority of K-12 students.

New Evidence on the Relationship between Housing and Schools

This study relies on housing and school data compiled from a variety of public and private data sources.¹⁶ Housing and school data are linked by ZIP code or neighborhood. ZIP codes or neighborhoods that intersect school boundaries constitute unique observations.¹⁷ Letter grades were assigned to schools by Niche.com (an online publisher of school and residential data) and represent various dimensions of each school's quality (Appendix A).

Elementary schools tend to be associated with smaller attendance zones than middle and high schools, and public elementary schools are the sole focus of this analysis.¹⁸ Median home values vary widely across ZIP codes in the United States (Figure 1) and the average ZIP code associated with a high quality public school has a significantly higher median home value than the average ZIP code associated with a low quality public school (Figure 2 and Table 1), even when regional differences are accounted for.¹⁹

Figure 1. Median home value by ZIP code / ZIP code data coverage

Note: Colored ZIP codes contain one or more ZIP code-school observations and grayed ZIP codes represent areas without ZIP code-school observations.
Data Source: Niche, "K-12 and Place to Live Data." Licensed exclusively for the Joint Economic Committee. 2019.

For example, the average ZIP code associated with an A+ public elementary school has a median home value of $486,104, which is roughly four times higher than a D or lower public elementary school ($122,061).²⁰ This relationship between home values and school quality suggests many American households would find B+ or higher quality public schools out of reach; the median home value in the United States is $200,000.²¹ Median home values follow a similar pattern across continuous measures of overall school quality (Appendix C).²²

Figure 2: School quality varies by home value across U.S. public elementary schools
Note: Home values represent the mean ZIP code within a school-quality category. Note that certain districts with open enrollment policies contain non-binding school attendance zones and these relationships are reflected in this figure and throughout the paper, except in Appendix H. School grade assignment by Niche.com is intended to follow a roughly bell-shaped distribution and the number of zip-school observations in each school-grade category varies by quality measure, see Appendix B for details. Median home values are based on 2017 American Community Survey (ACS) estimates.
Data Source: Niche, "K-12 and Place to Live Data." Licensed exclusively for the Joint Economic Committee. 2019. Table 1. School quality varies by home value across U.S. public elementary schools

Overall School Quality

Academic Quality

Teacher Quality

Health & Safety

D+

133,748

132,051

≤D

122,061

106,900

Data Source: Niche, "K-12 and Place to Live Data." Licensed exclusively for the Joint Economic Committee. 2019.
The relationship between median home value and academic and teacher quality follows roughly the same pattern. The average ZIP code's median home value is $106,900 for schools at the lowest academic quality level, and $508,485 for schools at the highest.

Median home value doubles across teacher quality. The average ZIP code associated with C- teacher quality has a median home value of $168,949, while an average ZIP code associated with a school with A+ teacher quality has a median home value of $334,626.²³

Finally, median home value is flatter across health and safety ratings but with more disparity between the tails. The average ZIP code intersecting a school with the lowest health and safety rating has a median home value of $167,989, while an average ZIP code intersecting a school with an A+ health and safety has a median home value of $425,021.

City Case Studies

The trend in home values across school quality levels may simply reflect individual choices about where to live, how households value educational amenities, or what type of households' children excel at school. However, past and present school zoning and comprehensive residential zoning suggests it is unlikely the relationship between homes and schools reflects a natural product of free choice.

To test the idea that public policy affects the relationship between home values and school quality, the following case studies exploit differences between cities that vary substantially across two policy dimensions (Figure 3). Cities vary from restrictively zoned to minimally regulated and from traditional residential assignment to districtwide lottery assignment (Appendices D and E).²⁴

Figure 3. Two dimensions of public school access
Portland, Oregon: Residential school assignment with restrictive zoning

Portland, Oregon pairs traditional school assignment policies and limited transfer opportunities with restrictive residential zoning.²⁵ Over three quarters (77 percent) of residential land is zoned for detached single-family homes in Portland and Portland's urban growth boundary also artificially limits available land.²⁶ Meanwhile, Portland's population grew almost 12 percent between 2010 and 2018, increasing demand for housing over time.²⁷

Portland should theoretically exhibit greater housing price disparities across low and high quality schools and fare poorly at providing high quality schools at low or affordable prices. In fact, Portland home prices are significantly above national averages at every school quality level (Figure 4), and the average neighborhood median home value associated with an A quality school is $555,096.

Figure 4. Portland home values are high and increase across school quality levels
Notes: Averages are for neighborhoods within Portland and ZIP codes nationally. Public elementary schools only.
Data Source: Niche, "K-12 and Place to Live Data." Licensed exclusively for the Joint Economic Committee. 2019.

Portland features increasing average home values across increasing school quality levels, with around $285,000 difference between home values associated with its highest and lowest quality schools. For policymakers that care about access to high-quality education, Portland arguably represents the worst of both worlds: restrictive zoning which segregates housing by income and pushes home prices up at every quality level plus residentially assigned public schools that partition neighborhoods into school zones less-accessible to families at different income levels.

This policy pairing likely drives inter-district segregation as well, as would-be residents are excluded or deterred from moving to Portland based on high home values associated with even Portland's low quality public schools.²⁸ Portland's recently slowing population and job growth may marginally ease price pressures in the future but do not constitute a solution to the problem.

San Francisco, California: Districtwide lottery with restrictive zoning

San Francisco has a districtwide lottery system that assigns students to schools using an open enrollment application that uses "tiebreakers" to place students at schools when schools are over capacity. It pairs this policy with highly restrictive residential zoning, and strong and growing demand for housing.

Restrictive zoning creates artificial scarcity which creates upward pressure on home prices at every quality level; estimates from past research suggest residential zoning increases the cost of housing by 53 percent in San Francisco.²⁹

San Francisco exhibits a flatter relationship between housing and school quality (Figure 5) and effectively charges one average home price across all quality levels.³⁰ However, the price is so high that public education opportunities are inaccessible to many existing and would-be residents.

Figure 5. San Francisco home values are high and relatively flat across school quality levels

Note: In this figure San Francisco's neighborhood-school relationships are based on the city's school attendance areas. However, as a consequence of San Francisco's districtwide lottery, these attendance zones are non-binding and the functional relationship between schools and neighborhoods in San Francisco may be more accurately represented by Appendix H, Figure 1.
Averages are for neighborhoods within San Francisco and ZIP codes nationally. Public elementary schools only.
Data Source: Niche, "K-12 and Place to Live Data." Licensed exclusively for the Joint Economic Committee. 2019.

San Francisco's districtwide lottery would likely be more effective at improving access if city residential zoning policies supported housing affordability, but the average neighborhood's median home value in San Francisco is approximately $1 million at every school quality level. The home-value-to-income ratio is much higher in San Francisco at every school quality level than nationally or within any comparison city (Figure 6), which likely makes living in San Francisco unappealing to families. Prices are so high that research suggests minorities and low-income residents have led out-migration from San Francisco, and families with children have led out-migration from the state generally.³¹

Figure 6. Housing affordability varies by city and school quality

Note: Ratios are for neighborhoods within each city and ZIP codes nationally. Ratios are rounded to the nearest whole number.
Data Source: Niche, "K-12 and Place to Live Data." Licensed exclusively for the Joint Economic Committee. 2019.

San Francisco is wavering on its commitment to a districtwide lottery, and the district is poised to adopt a new enrollment system likely to include stronger elements of residential assignment in coming years.³² Criticisms of the current districtwide lottery include that the lottery is creating more demographically patterned enrollment due to information and transportation limitations, despite efforts to address these issues by non-profits and through city bus routes.³³

Even in cities with a wide degree of public school choice, students face barriers in exercising it due to practical considerations like commute time, transportation costs, and social challenges associated with attending a school outside of their neighborhood.

Transportation demands unique to public school choice have strained school budgets in some places. For example, in recent years Boston Public Schools spent a substantial portion of the district's budget on transportation. Costs are high partly because a lottery system necessitates moving children to schools across the city in an inefficient fashion. In Boston, older children receive a public transportation pass, but children up to sixth grade use yellow buses which cost the district up to $10,000 to $20,000 per student per year.

Moreover, administrators have observed that low-income, late-comer, and immigrant families are less likely than other students to effectively access public school choice options, and are more likely to attend their local neighborhood school irrespective of quality.³⁴ Reforming residential zoning policies could theoretically mitigate some of the challenges associated with open enrollment in San Francisco and Boston by allowing families to not only choose their school, but choose to live closer to their school.

Houston, Texas: Residential school assignment with liberal residential zoning

Texas is a lightly zoned state, ranked 49 th-most-restrictive,³⁵ and Houston is the only major city without a traditional zoning code. Houston is not regulation-free, and does have minimum lot size regulations, front setbacks, street design regulations, and parking requirements.³⁶ Still, zoning was previously estimated to account for 0 percent of the cost of housing in Houston as a result of its lax regulatory environment, and this makes the city unique in this cross-city comparison.³⁷

Like Portland, schools are traditionally assigned in Houston and limited transfer options are available. Houston also has some charter and magnet schools which provide a lesser degree of public school choice not captured in this analysis.

The Houston metro area has seen remarkable in-migration in recent years, adding more people between 2010 and 2018 than all other metro areas in the US except Dallas.³⁸ In spite of increasing demand, the city has successfully kept home prices low both generally and across its highest school quality levels (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Houston home values are similar to national values, despite substantial population growth

Note: Averages are for neighborhoods within Houston and ZIP codes nationally. Public elementary schools only. There is only one A+ observation. The combined, weighted average of observations in A and A+ categories is $298,515.
Data Source: Niche, "K-12 and Place to Live Data." Licensed exclusively for the Joint Economic Committee. 2019.

In Houston, the average neighborhood associated with an A quality school has a median home value of $300,359, around $81,000 less than the national average at that school quality level. At every school quality level, Houston has lower home prices than the other major cities in the analysis, except that Chicago's median home value at the A- level is $8,000 less.

Houston's success likely hinges on its elastic housing supply which translates to more homes being permitted in the Houston metropolitan area on an annual basis (Figure 8). Economic theory predicts that inelastic supply in the face of growing demand will cause price escalations, and the housing and zoning literature supports this idea.

Figure 8. Houston MSA issues more building permits annually per capita

Note: Hurricane Harvey caused catastrophic damage to the Houston MSA in 2017, likely resulting in fewer housing starts in the Houston MSA the same year.
Data Source(s): Building Permits, Annual New Privately Owned Housing Units Authorized in Permit-Issuing Places. 2019. Distributed by Haver Analytics, Inc.
Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Area Totals Dataset: Population and Estimated Components of Change: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2018. 2019. Distributed by U.S. Census Bureau. https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/datasets/2010-2018/metro/totals/cbsa-est2018-alldata.csv

Houston also likely benefits from the unusual land use pattern resulting from its lack of traditional Euclidean zoning, which separates development by type or use. Unlike most cities, Houston's organic land use pattern intersperses multi-family housing throughout school zones in the Houston metro area.³⁹

Despite huge immigration inflows over previous decades, Houston is arguably more inclusive and accessible at most school quality levels than San Francisco, Portland, and even Chicago. Houston provides access to highly rated public schools for a much wider range of economic backgrounds, in spite of its choice-limiting residential assignment policies.

Chicago, Illinois: Open enrollment with moderate zoning

Chicago pairs inclusive open enrollment policies which allow students to apply to non-neighborhood schools through a computerized lottery⁴⁰ with moderate residential zoning supported by historically pro-growth leadership.⁴¹ Chicago's zoning tax, or the gap between the marginal cost of new construction and the market price of an apartment, was previously estimated at 5.7 percent. For comparison, Chicago's zoning tax is around one-tenth of the zoning tax in San Francisco.⁴²

This policy pairing seems to improve access across school quality compared to other cities. For example, the relationship between housing prices and school quality in Chicago is flatter than nationally or in comparison cities with traditional residential assignment policies. ⁴³ Perhaps the premium to home ownership in neighborhoods with better schools is smaller when all residents have access to all schools, or residential sorting is less likely to take place along school boundaries under open enrollment as a result of school boundaries' reduced significance.

Figure 9. Chicago home values are moderate and mostly flat across school quality
Notes: In this figure Chicago's neighborhood-school relationships are based on the city's school attendance zones. However, as a consequence of Chicago's open enrollment policy, these attendance zones are non-binding and the functional relationship between schools and neighborhoods in Chicago may be more accurately represented by Appendix H, Figure 2.
Averages are for neighborhoods within Chicago and ZIP codes nationally. Public elementary schools only.
Data Source: Niche, "K-12 and Place to Live Data." Licensed exclusively for the Joint Economic Committee. 2019.

Chicago's moderate residential zoning likely helps contain prices overall. The average neighborhood associated with an A- quality school has a median home value of $292,872, substantially less than Portland or San Francisco and around $8,000 less than Houston.

Although some of Chicago's affordability across quality levels is due to good policy, some is likely due to poor fiscal health and population outflows. For example, Chicago's pension system is largely thought to be unsustainable and property taxes are growing to support public obligations. Current and future taxes are likely priced into home values, suppressing home values in Chicago overall.⁴⁴

Chicago's affordability is also arguably less impressive than Houston's because Houston has experienced significant and sustained population increases while Chicago has experienced a population decline in recent years.⁴⁵ The city is also less successful in allowing a diversity of housing options across geography than Houston, which may practically reduce access to high performing schools.⁴⁶

However, the city is still a seller's market and Chicago's general pro-growth outlook has arguably kept prices in check historically, and continues to temper home prices today. ⁴⁷ As a result, Chicago's open enrollment and moderate zoning policies provide a useful model for cities that want to increase access and inclusivity.

Policy Implications

Despite public education's promise of being a free, inclusive, and equalizing force, families are faced with the reality that attending a high-performing public school often requires paying more for housing, and many students' educational opportunities are limited as a result. School zoning and residential zoning regulation directly impact the type and price of homes associated with schools, and as a result can positively or negatively impact access to opportunity.

Education policy often highlights the relationship between school zoning and access to opportunity. In this study, residential assignment policies are associated with climbing home values across increasing school quality in Portland and Houston, and open enrollment policies are associated with flatter relationships between home value and school quality in Chicago and San Francisco.

Although open enrollment policies have often been favored by policymakers interested in expanding opportunity, San Francisco's districtwide lottery experience provides a cautionary tale that open enrollment policies are not a panacea. While public school choice is helpful in creating new educational opportunities for students, students are likely to attend schools that are close to home, particularly when they are young, and are unable to attend schools in a district where home prices are too high.⁴⁸

Residential zoning reform could be a powerful tool to make high quality schools and districts more accessible. In this study, cities with less restrictive residential zoning exhibit lower home prices and improved affordability at nearly every school quality level.

Previous research finds that cities with less restrictive zoning produce more varied and affordable housing than restrictively zoned cities. Local reforms including eliminating single family-only zoning, increasing height limits, and reducing minimum lot sizes could increase housing diversity and reduce home prices in districts, whether or not residential assignment policies are in place.

Momentum for residential zoning reform is growing, with places including Minneapolis, Minnesota, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Oregon passing related legislation this past year. Whether these reforms will be effective rests partly on government's ability to meaningfully change the process and incentives that generated restrictive regulation to begin with.⁴⁹

Increasing states' roles is likely necessary to produce effective reform. States should revisit their State Zoning Enabling Acts (SZEA), which provide local municipalities with nearly unlimited latitude in producing residential zoning regulation. At the federal level, attaching zoning liberalization requirements to housing, transportation, or educational grant money may send an important message to jurisdictions.

Whatever methods are used, this paper suggests that the merits of zoning liberalization may extend well beyond affordability. Paired with comprehensive open enrollment policies, residential zoning reform may improve educational access and opportunities for students within and between school districts. These changes would build and strengthen communities as greater numbers of families and students are able to participate in the school community they desire and access educational opportunities necessary to succeed long-term.

Appendix A. Factors Considered in Niche.com School Grading

Table 1. Overall Quality Grade Table 2. Academics Grade Table 3. Teacher Quality Grade Table 4. Health and Safety Grade Note: for more information on letter grade assignment and methodology see:https://www.niche.com/about/methodology/best-school-districts/

Appendix B. Percent of ZIP code-school observations by quality level, U.S. public elementary schools

Overall

Academic

Teacher

Health & Safety

Appendix C. Figure 1. Median home value varies by public school rank

Note: Home values represent the mean ZIP code within a school-quality quintile. Note that certain districts with open enrollment policies contain non-binding school attendance areas and these relationships are reflected in this figure and others in the paper. Factors considered in Niche.com school ranking are described in Appendix A. Median home values are based on 2017 American Community Survey (ACS) estimates.

Appendix C. Figure 2. Median home value varies non-linearly with school rank

Note: This figure was generated using lowess smoother, a locally weighted regression of median home value on public elementary school rank. Each data point represents a zip-school observation, with Y axis values indicating the median home value for a zip code associated with a school with X axis value rank. Appendix D. Selected Cities' Measures of Zoning Regulation

Zoning Tax ² (Glaeser)

Metro Rank (of 47, Gyuorko)

State Rank, Land Use (of 50, Calder)

State Rank, Zoning (of 50, Calder)

Portland, OR

n/a

24 ¹

7

15

San Francisco, CA

53.1%

6

22

38

Houston, TX

0%

38

49

49

Chicago, IL

5.7%

29

48

46

1 The metropolitan area is Portland-Vancouver, OR-WA, which may bias the measure downward.
2 The zoning tax is the gap between the marginal cost of new construction and the market price of an apartment.Source(s): Glaeser, Edward L., Gyourko, Joseph and Saks, Raven. "Why is Manhattan so expensive? Regulation and the rise in housing prices." The Journal of Law and Economics 48, no. 2 (2005): 331-369. https://www.nber.org/papers/w10124.pdf Gyourko, Joseph, Albert Saiz, and Anita Summers. "A New Measure of the Local Regulatory Environment for Housing Markets: The Wharton Residential Land Use Regulatory Index," December 13, 2006. https://doi.org/10.18411/d-2016-154 Brown Calder, Vanessa. "Zoning, Land-Use Planning, and Housing Affordability." Cato Institute Policy Analysis 823 (2017). https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/zoning-land-use-planning-housing-affordability

Appendix E. Selected Cities' Enrollment Policies
Appendix F. School Quality by Home Value Comparison (Overview)

Home Value, Highest Quality School

Home Value, Lowest Quality School

Home Value Difference, % (A to C school unless noted)

Home Value Difference, $

(A to C school unless noted)

School Enrollment Policies (rated 0-4)

Zoning Policy Description (Restrictive, Moderate, Liberal)

National ¹

$486,104

$122,061

106%

$196,408

n/a

n/a

Portland, OR

$555,096

$270,298

90%

$262,552

1

R

San Francisco, CA

$1,034,201

$1,019,518

7%

$64,910

4

R

Houston, TX

$200,864

$93,540

148%

$179,026

1

L

Chicago, IL

$292,872

$243,609

14% ²

$36,530 ²

4

M

Note: Home value represents the average neighborhood median home value associated with a given school quality level. Zoning policy description by author.
1 National trend is driven by both intra and inter-district differences, whereas city trends are intra-district only.
2 A- to C difference only (no A observations available).

Appendix G. School Quality by Home Value Comparison (Detail)

National

Portland

San Francisco

Houston

Chicago

Appendix H. Figure 1. San Francisco home values are high and flat across school quality levels

Note: This figure is produced using a single average of all unique neighborhoods associated with a San Francisco public school. It does not rely exclusively on San Francisco's smaller, non-binding attendance areas to determine neighborhood-school relationships, but instead assumes that all neighborhoods intersecting San Francisco public school boundaries are functionally connected with all public schools in San Francisco. Appendix H. Figure 2. Chicago home values are moderate and flat across school quality

Note: This figure is produced using a single average of all unique neighborhoods associated with a Chicago public school. It does not rely exclusively on Chicago's smaller, non-binding attendance zones to determine neighborhood-school relationships, but instead assumes that all neighborhoods intersecting Chicago public school boundaries are functionally connected with all public schools in Chicago. Vanessa Brown Calder
Senior Policy Advisor

3 Bonding social capital develops within social groups, whereas bridging social capital develops between social groups. Social groups include groups defined by religious, class, or racial/ethnic associations.
At school, children have opportunities to meet peers and build relationships through voluntary organizations including clubs, sports, and activities. Parents develop supportive social networks through school communities and volunteer organizations like the PTA.

7 Bergman, Peter, Chetty, Raj, DeLuca, Stefanie, Hendren, Nathaniel, Katz, Lawrence F, and Palmer,
Christopher. Creating Moves to Opportunity: Experimental Evidence on Barriers to Neighborhood Choice. Cambridge, Mass., USA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2019. http://www.nber.org/papers/w26164.pdf

8 Survey research finds about two-thirds of Americans earning less than $60,000 per year say they are prevented from moving to a better neighborhood due to high housing costs.
Ekins, Emily. "What Americans Think About Poverty, Wealth, and Work: Findings from the Cato Institute 2019 Welfare, Work, and Wealth National Survey" Cato Publications. (September 2019).
https://www.cato.org/publications/survey-reports/what-americans-think-about-poverty-wealth-work

9 For example, moving from a 25th to 75th percentile elementary school (a 1 standard deviation in student test scores) meant paying 10 percent more in home price, or $14,000 in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.
Kane, Thomas J, Staiger, Douglas O, and Cellini, Stephanie. School Quality, Neighborhoods and Housing Prices: The Impacts of School Desegregation. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005. http://www.nber.org/papers/w11347.pdf
Consistent with this paper's findings, research suggests the house price premium varies non-linearly with school quality, and the price premium is larger for homes associated with high-performing schools.
Chiodo, Abbigail, Rubén Hernández-Murillo, and Michael T. Owyang. "Nonlinear effects of school quality on house prices." Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review 92, no. May/June 2010 (2010). https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/review/10/05/Chiodo.pdf
Recent research suggests high income parents are more likely to invest in their children at home, and this home investment is more important than school investment in a child's early development. This may help explain why higher home values are often associated with higher quality public school outcomes (high home values are correlated with high incomes and therefore higher home investment). Still, educational quality has an impact on skill formation and can vary outside of home investment, thereby exacerbating or reducing home-based gaps. See:
Agostinelli, Francesco, Saharkhiz, Morteza, Wiswall, Matthew J. "Home and School Investment in the Development of Children." National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series No. 26037. (July 2019). https://www.nber.org/papers/w26037

10 Ganong, Peter, and Daniel Shoag. "Why Has Regional Income Convergence in the U.S. Declined?" Journal of Urban Economics 102 (2017): 76-90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2017.07.002.
Lens, Michael C., and Monkkonen, Paavo. "Do strict land use regulations make metropolitan areas more segregated by income?" Journal of the American Planning Association 82, no. 1 (2016): 6-21. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01944363.2015.1111163
Rothwell, Jonathan T., & Massey, Douglas S. "Density zoning and class segregation in U.S. metropolitan areas." Social science quarterly, 91(5). (2010).1123-1143. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3632084/

11 Kane, Thomas J, Staiger, Douglas O, and Cellini, Stephanie. School Quality, Neighborhoods and
Housing Prices: The Impacts of School Desegregation. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005. http://www.nber.org/papers/w11347.pdf
Figlio, David N., Lucas, Maurice. What's in a Grade?: School Report Cards and Housing Prices. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2000. https://www.nber.org/papers/w8019.pdf

13 For example, California had three inter-district transfer programs which served 2.7% of all 2014-2015 students. Taylor, Mac. "Evaluation of the School District of Choice Program." Legislative Analyst Office. (January 2016). https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3331.

14 School finance equalization policies have also attempted to reduce the link between housing and school resources that result from traditional local property tax collection. However, school financing is a bit of a different issue: how resources are allocated as compared to which school students attend.
Property taxes typically fund 2/3 of school budgets, with most of the remaining funding provided by the state. Property taxes may also encourage restrictive residential zoning in order to control the tax base and ensure higher per capita revenue.
Fischel, William A. Zoning Rules?: the Economics of Land Use Regulation Cambridge, Massachusetts: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2015.

15 "Public School Choice Programs." National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Home Page, a part of the U.S. Department of Education, 2019. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=6.

16 JEC licensed data from Niche.com. The dataset is the product of public and private data including Department of Education (DOE), National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), American Community Survey (ACS), and Niche student and parent surveys. For more information, see Appendix A.

17 ZIP codes are used for national estimates, and neighborhoods are used for cross-city comparisons. ZIP codes provide more comprehensive data coverage for national estimates (Figure 1) and neighborhoods provide a more granular unit of analysis for most comparison cities.
Niche's neighborhood data includes approximately 69 million residents located in 59 U.S. metro areas. Ninety-nine percent of 326,865 neighborhood-school observations are located in one of these metro areas. Neighborhoods vary in size from 60 residents to 60,000 and run the spectrum from well-defined and locally-understood boundaries to boundaries subjectively created by third parties.

18 Charter and magnet schools, which receive public funding but lack traditional school zones, are excluded.

19 A model regressing logged median home value on school quality grade dummies and state fixed effects with 185,027 zip-elementary school observations finds an overall R ² = 0.51, F-stat = 3215.00, p-value = 0.00, adjusted R ² = 0.51, root MSE = 0.49.

20 Relationships presented in Figure 2 are intended to provide descriptive information about the housing-school choice landscape families face. There are many variables that may influence the relationship between home values and school quality.

21 Median home values are based on the 2017 American Community Survey (ACS).The median home value in the United States in 2017 was approximately $200,000, or less than the median home value in an average ZIP code associated with a B+ quality school.
US Census Bureau "2017 American Housing Survey" Table Creator tool "Nation - Value, Purchase Price, and Source of Down payment - Owner-occupied Units" Accessed October 23 rd, 2019.
Zillow, Inc. "United States Home Prices & Home Values - United States Market Overview." Zillow. (2019).
https://www.zillow.com/home-values/

22 Note that not all school quality measures vary with home prices in the same way. For instance, school resources and facilities grades generally decline as average neighborhood median home value rise, and some other measures don't follow an obvious pattern. The former relationship may be a consequence of redistributive federal or local programs.

23 Niche.com restricts the range of grade values for teacher quality between A+ and C- for display purposes.

24 Only major U.S. cities with historically strong housing demand are selected for comparison.
In some cases selected cities do not provide widespread public school choice through a districtwide lottery, but provide other types of public school choice including magnet schools, charter schools, and attendance waivers. These alternatives can provide opportunities for circumventing the local housing and public school choice set, and are noted in some places though not reflected in estimates.

25 Portland Public Schools (PPS) only guarantees enrollment at assigned neighborhood schools. A limited number (2.8%) of K-8 students used the intra-district lottery to transfer to a non-assigned school during the 2018-2019 school year.
"Enrollment Projections." Portland Public Schools. Accessed October 30, 2019. https://www.pps.net/Page/1834.
"Enrollment and Transfer / Prior Transfer Data." Portland Public Schools. Accessed October 30, 2019. https://www.pps.net/Page/1030.

27 U.S. Census Bureau. "U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Portland City, Oregon." Census Bureau QuickFacts. Accessed November 8, 2019. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/portlandcityoregon.

28 Portland Public Schools (PPS) allows inter-district transfer enrollment for students that are connected to the district (for example, students that have siblings enrolled in PPS). In addition, PPS allows up to 100 students that do not meet specific criteria to transfer to PPS from an outside district. Inter-district transfers require the approval of sending and receiving districts.
"Enrollment & Transfer / Interdistrict Transfers." Portland Public Schools. Accessed October 30, 2019. https://www.pps.net/Page/10391.

29 Glaeser, Edward L., Gyourko, Joseph and Saks, Raven. "Why is Manhattan so expensive? Regulation and the rise in housing prices." The Journal of Law and Economics 48, no. 2 (2005): 331-369. https://www.nber.org/papers/w10124.pdf

30 As noted in the text, San Francisco estimates are based on the city's school attendance areas in Figure 5. As a consequence of San Francisco's districtwide lottery, these attendance areas are non-binding and the functional relationship between schools and neighborhoods in San Francisco may be more accurately represented by Appendix H, Figure 1: a single average median home value displayed at each school quality level.

31 Kneebone, Elizabeth and Romem, Issi. "Disparity in Departure: Who Leaves the Bay Area and Where Do They Go?" Terner Center Blog. University of California Berkley. (October 2018). http://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/uploads/Disparity_in_Departure.pdf
Garosi, Justin and Uhler, Brian. "California Losing Residents Via Domestic Migration." Legislative Analyst Office. (February 2018). https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/265.

34 Interview with Robert Havdala, former Senior Director, Boston Public Schools, May 20 th 2019.

37 Glaeser, Edward L., Gyourko, Joseph and Saks, Raven. "Why is Manhattan so expensive? Regulation and the rise in housing prices." The Journal of Law and Economics 48, no. 2 (2005): 331-369. https://www.nber.org/papers/w10124.pdf

39 Houston-Galveston Planning and Development Department, "Urban Houston Framework" Figure 6: Housing Type. Accessed October 25 th, 2019. http://www.houstontx.gov/planning/DevelopRegs/urbanhoustonframework/PDFs/FullReport_UrbanHoustonFramework.pdf

41 Glaeser, Edward L. Triumph of the City?: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier New York: Penguin Press, 2011.

42 Glaeser, Edward L., Gyourko, Joseph and Saks, Raven. "Why is Manhattan so expensive? Regulation and the rise in housing prices." The Journal of Law and Economics 48, no. 2 (2005): 331-369. https://www.nber.org/papers/w10124.pdf

43 As noted in the text, Figure 9 estimates rely on neighborhood-school relationships generated using Chicago Public School's school attendance zones. As a consequence of Chicago's open enrollment policy, these attendance zones are non-binding and the functional relationship between schools and neighborhoods may be more accurately represented by Appendix H, Figure 2: a single average median home value displayed at each school quality level.

47 Zillow, Inc. "Chicago IL Home Prices & Home Values." Zillow. Accessed October 18, 2019. https://www.zillow.com/chicago-il/home-values/.

48 Research finds that in cities with a high degree of public school choice, elementary students commute 3 to 9 minutes to school on average. Unsurprisingly, this is a shorter commute to school than middle or high school students in the study. Even for high school students, the estimated median travel time was 10 to 15 minutes.
Blagg, Kristin, Matthew Chingos, Sean P. Corcoran, Sarah A. Cordes, Joshua Cowen, Patrick Denice,
Betheny Gross et al. "The road to school: How far students travel to school in the choice-rich cities of Denver, Detroit, New Orleans, New York City, and Washington, DC." Urban Institute Student Transportation Working Group, (2018). https://www.urban.org/research/publication/road-school-how-far-students-travel-school-choice-rich-cities-denver-detroit-new-orleans-new-york-city-and-washington-dc

49 Past reforms including accessory dwelling unit (ADU) reform in California were circumvented by uncooperative local governments for years until state governments nearly eliminated local governments' ability to site and permit ADUs. Note that ADUs are secondary dwelling units -- colloquially granny or nanny flats-- that share a property with a primary residence.
Elmendorf, Chris. "Recalibrating Local Politics to Increase the Supply of Housing." Regulation Magazine. (Summer 2019). Cato Publications. https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2019/6/reg-v42n2-3.pdf

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Zoned Out: How School and Residential Zoning Limit Educational Opportunity

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The primary community a child belongs to outside of her family is her school community. Under the best circumstances the school community positively contributes to a child's socialization, academic outcomes,1 skill development,2 and social mobility.

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Report No. 12 of the Massachusetts School Board, 1848

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Report No. 12 of the Massachusetts School Board, 1848

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“Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin,

is the great equalizer of the conditions of men

—the balance-wheel of the social machinery... [The Common School] will open a wider area over which the social feelings will expand; and, if this education should be universal and complete, it would do more than all things else to obliterate factitious distinctions in society.”

Horace Mann

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Report No. 12 of the Massachusetts School Board (1848)
Horace Mann

The European tradition of education centered in the family rather than in schools did not take root in the United States, because the pattern of the extended family--several generations living under one roof--disappeared on the frontier. As families moved to take advantage of free land, the old educational patterns broke down, and new forms were generated. As a result, Americans began to delegate more and more educational responsibility to the schools. The basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic were just the start; over the decades society has assigned many other skills previously learned in the homes to be taught in schools.

But aside from teaching knowledge and skills, reformers saw the schools as the logical place to inculcate democratic idealism. In the 1820s universal education was an idea held by only a few visionaries; within a generation, a majority of the states had bought into this idea. Aside from abolition, no other reform movement of the Jacksonian era had such success, and the key figure was Horace Mann.

Born in Massachusetts in a Calvinist small town, Mann (1796-1859) had little formal education as a youth, but read a lot at the town library, where he learned enough to be admitted to Brown University. After graduation in 1819 he taught for a while, studied law and then entered politics, where he soon became a rising star in the state assembly. Then in 1835, he shocked family and friends by taking the job of secretary to the Massachusetts Commission to Improve Education (later the State Board of Education), an agency with no money or control over local schools.

Mann's only instrument was the Annual Report he wrote, in which he set forth his vision of what education should be in a free society. Between 1837 and 1848, Mann became the best-known educator in America, and the best-known American educator throughout the world. Why?

His central thesis was essentially Jeffersonian--no republic can endure unless its citizens are literate and educated. Moreover, he strongly believed, as did the Puritans of two centuries earlier, that education should be moralistic.

But the United States in the 1830s had a greater diversity in social and economic status, as well as in religious and moral values, than had Puritan New England two centuries earlier. To this heterogeneity, Mann wanted to introduce the "common school"--that is, a school common to all the people, that would provide a common and unifying experience.

This was a radical idea in the United States in the nineteenth century, and would be a radical idea in the rest of the world until after the Second World War. Europe continued to have a dual school system, in which the more prosperous classes were placed on a track leading to a university education, while the children of the poor were directed toward simple vocational training.

Mann wanted to eliminate the religious and class distinctions implicit in this dual system. The common school would be commonly supported, commonly attended and commonly controlled; its ultimate goal would be sociological and national unity.

Mann's faith was total. There were no limitations, at least in his mind, to what the common school could do. He believed that the traditional curriculum could be universalized, and that culture, hitherto reserved for the upper classes, could be democratized.

But the most important element in Mann's faith was that schools could preserve and sustain a democratic society. Unlike Jefferson, he did not believe that education by itself was a virtue. Its value lay in the benefits it brought to society as well as to the individual. In the sections that follow, taken from his last Annual Report, Mann summed up his views on how an educated populace would avoid the social and economic divisions of the Old World, and how educated citizens would ensure the triumph of democratic government.

For further reading: Jonathan Messerli, Horace Mann: A Biography (1972); Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The National Experience (1980); and Michael Katz, The Irony of Early School Reform (1968).

Report No. 12 of the Massachusetts School Board

Under the Providence of God, our means of education are the grand machinery by which the "raw material" of human nature can be worked up into inventors and discoverers, into skilled artisans and scientific farmers, into scholars and jurists, into the founders of benevolent institutions, and the great expounders of ethical and theological science. By means of early education, these embryos of talent may be quickened, which will solve the difficult problems of political and economical law; and by them, too, the genius may be kindled which will blaze forth in the Poets of Humanity. Our schools, far more than they have done, may supply the Presidents and Professors of Colleges, and Superintendents of Public Instruction, all over the land; and send, not only into our sister states, but across the Atlantic, the men of practical science, to superintend the construction of the great works of art. Here, too, may those judicial powers be developed and invigorated, which will make legal principles so clear and convincing as to prevent appeals to force; and, should the clouds of war ever lower over our country, some hero may be found,--the nursling of our schools, and ready to become the leader of our armies,--that best of all heroes, who will secure the glories of a peace, unstained by the magnificent murders of the battle-field. . . .

Without undervaluing any other human agency, it may be safely affirmed that the Common School, improved and energized, as it can easily be, may become the most effective and benignant of all the forces of civilization. Two reasons sustain this position. In the first place, there is a universality in its operation, which can be affirmed of no other institution whatever. If administered in the spirit of justice and conciliation, all the rising generation may be brought within the circle of its reformatory and elevating influences. And, in the second place, the materials upon which it operates are so pliant and ductile as to be susceptible of assuming a greater variety of forms than any other earthly work of the Creator. The inflexibility and ruggedness of the oak, when compared with the lithe sapling or the tender germ, are but feeble emblems to typify the docility of childhood, when contrasted with the obduracy and intractableness of man. It is these inherent advantages of the Common School, which, in our own State, have produced results so striking, from a system so imperfect, and an administration so feeble. In teaching the blind, and the deaf and dumb, in kindling the latent spark of intelligence that lurks in an idiot's mind, and in the more holy work of reforming abandoned and outcast children, education has proved what it can do, by glorious experiments. These wonders, it has done in its infancy, and with the lights of a limited experience; but, when its faculties shall be fully developed, when it shall be trained to wield its mighty energies for the protection of society against the giant vices which now invade and torment it;--against intemperance, avarice, war, slavery, bigotry, the woes of want and the wickedness of waste,--then, there will not be a height to which these enemies of the race can escape, which it will not scale, nor a Titan among them all, whom it will not slay.

Now I proceed, then, in endeavoring to show how the true business of the schoolroom connects itself, and becomes identical, with the great interests of society. The former is the infant, immature state of those interests; the latter, their developed, adult state. As "the child is father to the man," so may the training of the schoolroom expand into the institutions and fortunes of the State. . . .

Intellectual Education, as a Means of Removing Poverty, and Securing Abundance

Another cardinal object which the government of Massachusetts, and all the influential men in the State should propose to themselves, is the physical well-being of all the people,--the sufficiency, comfort, competence, of every individual, in regard to food, raiment, and shelter. And these necessaries and conveniences of life should be obtained by each individual for himself, or by each family for themselves, rather than accepted from the hand of charity, or extorted by poor-laws. It is not averred that this most desirable result can, in all instances, be obtained; but it is, nevertheless, the end to be aimed at. True statesmanship and true political economy, not less than true philanthropy, present this perfect theory as the goal, to be more and more closely approximated by our imperfect practice. The desire to achieve such a result cannot be regarded as an unreasonable ambition; for, though all mankind were well-fed, well-clothed, and well-housed, they might still be but half-civilized. . . .

According to the European theory, men are divided into classes,--some to toil and earn, others to seize and enjoy. According to the Massachusetts theory, all are to have an equal chance for earning, and equal security in the enjoyment of what they earn. The latter tends to equality of condition; the former to the grossest inequalities. Tried by any Christian standard of morals, or even by any of the better sort of heathen standards, can any one hesitate, for a moment, in declaring which of the two will produce the greater amount of human welfare; and which, therefore, is the more conformable to the Divine will? The European theory is blind to what constitutes the highest glory, as well as the highest duty, of a State. . . .

I suppose it to be the universal sentiment of all those who mingle any ingredient of benevolence with their notions on Political Economy, that vast and overshadowing private fortunes are among the greatest dangers to which the happiness of the people in a republic can be subjected. Such fortunes would create a feudalism of a new kind; but one more oppressive and unrelenting than that of the Middle Ages. The feudal lords in England, and on the continent, never held their retainers in a more abject condition of servitude, than the great majority of foreign manufacturers and capitalists hold their operatives and laborers at the present day. The means employed are different, but the similarity in results is striking. What force did then, money does now. The villein of the Middle Ages had no spot of earth on which he could live, unless one were granted to him by his lord. The operative or laborer of the present day has no employment, and therefore no bread, unless the capitalist will accept his services. The vassal had no shelter but such as his master provided for him. Not one in five thousand of English operatives, or farm laborers, is able to build or own even a hovel; and therefore they must accept such shelter as Capital offers them. The baron prescribed his own terms to his retainers; those terms were peremptory, and the serf must submit or perish. The British manufacturer or farmer prescribes the rate of wages he will give to his work-people; he reduces these wages under whatever pretext he pleases; and they too have no alternative but submission or starvation. In some respects, indeed, the condition of the modern dependant is more forlorn than that of the corresponding serf class in former times. Some attributes of the patriarchal relation did spring up between the lord and his lieges, to soften the harsh relations subsisting between them. Hence came some oversight of the condition of children, some relief in sickness, some protection and support in the decrepitude of age. But only in instances comparatively few, have kindly offices smoothed the rugged relation between British Capital and British Labor. The children of the work-people are abandoned to their fate; and, notwithstanding the privations they suffer, and the dangers they threaten, no power in the realm has yet been able to secure them an education; and when the adult laborer is prostrated by sickness, or eventually worn out by toil and age, the poor-house, which has all along been his destination, becomes his destiny.

Now two or three things will doubtless be admitted to be true, beyond all controversy, in regard to Massachusetts. By its industrial condition, and its business operations, it is exposed, far beyond any other state in the Union, to the fatal extremes of overgrown wealth and desperate poverty. Its population is more dense than that of any other state. It is four or five times more dense than the average of all the other states, taken together; and density of population has always been one of the proximate causes of social inequality. According to population and territorial extent, there is far more capital in Massachusetts,--capital which is movable, and instantaneously available,--than in any other state in the Union; and probably both these qualifications respecting population and territory could be omitted without endangering the truth of the assertion. It has been recently stated, in a very respectable public journal, on the authority of a writer conversant with the subject, that, from the last of June, 1846, to the 1st of August, 1848, the amount of money invested, by the citizens of Massachusetts, "in manufacturing cities, railroads, and other improvements," is "fifty-seven millions of dollars, of which more than fifty has been paid in and expended." The dividends to be received by the citizens of Massachusetts from June, 1848, to April, 1849, are estimated, by the same writer, at ten millions, and the annual increase of capital at "little short of twenty-two millions." If this be so, are we not in danger of naturalizing and domesticating among ourselves those hideous evils which are always engendered between Capital and Labor, when all the capital is in the hands of one class, and all the labor is thrown upon another?

Now, surely, nothing but Universal Education can counter-work this tendency to the domination of capital and the servility of labor. If one class possesses all the wealth and the education, while the residue of society is ignorant and poor, it matters not by what name the relation between them may be called; the latter, in fact and in truth, will be the servile dependents and subjects of the former. But if education be equably diffused, it will draw property after it, by the strongest of all attractions; for such a thing never did happen, and never can happen, as that an intelligent and practical body of men should be permanently poor. Property and labor, in different classes, are essentially antagonistic; but property and labor, in the same class, are essentially fraternal. The people of Massachusetts have, in some degree, appreciated the truth, that the unexampled prosperity of the State,--its comfort, its competence, its general intelligence and virtue,--is attributable to the education, more or less perfect, which all its people have received; but are they sensible of a fact equally important?--namely, that it is to this same education that two thirds of the people are indebted for not being, to-day, the vassals of as severe a tyranny, in the form of capital, as the lower classes of Europe are bound to in the form of brute force.

Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men--the balance-wheel of the social machinery. I do not here mean that it so elevates the moral nature as to make men disdain and abhor the oppression of their fellow-men. This idea pertains to another of its attributes. But I mean that it gives each man the independence and the means, by which he can resist the selfishness of other men. It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility towards the rich; it prevents being poor. Agrarianism is the revenge of poverty against wealth. The wanton destruction of the property of others,--the burning of hay-ricks and corn-ricks, the demolition of machinery, because it supersedes hand-labor, the sprinkling of vitriol on rich dresses,--is only agrarianism run mad. Education prevents both the revenge and the madness. On the other hand, a fellow-feeling for one's class or caste is the common instinct of hearts not wholly sunk in selfish regards for person, or for family. The spread of education, by enlarging the cultivated class or caste, will open a wider area over which the social feelings will expand; and, if this education should be universal and complete, it would do more than all things else to obliterate factitious distinctions in society.

The main idea set forth in the creeds of some political reformers, or revolutionizers, is that some people are poor because others are rich. This idea supposes a fixed amount of property in the community, which, by fraud or force, or arbitrary law, is unequally divided among men; and the problem presented for solution is, how to transfer a portion of this property from those who are supposed to have too much, to those who feel and know that they have too little. At this point, both their theory and their expectation of reform stop. But the beneficent power of education would not be exhausted, even though it should peaceably abolish all the miseries that spring from the coexistence, side by side, of enormous wealth and squalid want. It has a higher function. Beyond the power of diffusing old wealth, it has the prerogative of creating new. It is a thousand times more lucrative than fraud; and adds a thousandfold more to a nation's resources than the most successful conquests. Knaves and robbers can obtain only what was before possessed by others. But education creates or develops new treasures,--treasures not before possessed or dreamed of by any one. . . .

If a savage will learn how to swim, he can fasten a dozen pounds' weight to his back, and transport it across a narrow river, or other body of water of moderate width. If he will invent an axe, or other instrument, by which to cut down a tree, he can use the tree for a float, and one of its limbs for a paddle, and can thus transport many times the former weight, many times the former distance. Hollowing out his log, he will increase, what may be called, its tonnage,--or, rather, its poundage,--and, by sharpening its ends, it will cleave the water both more easily and more swiftly. Fastening several trees together, he makes a raft, and thus increases the buoyant power of his embryo water-craft. Turning up the ends of small poles, or using knees of timber instead of straight pieces, and grooving them together, or filling up the interstices between them, in some other way, so as to make them water-tight, he brings his rude raft literally into ship-shape. Improving upon hull below and rigging above, he makes a proud merchantman, to be wafted by the winds from continent to continent. But, even this does not content the adventurous naval architect. He frames iron arms for his ship; and, for oars, affixes iron wheels, capable of swift revolution, and stronger than the strong sea. Into iron-walled cavities in her bosom, he puts iron organs of massive structure and strength, and of cohesion insoluble by fire. Within these, he kindles a small volcano; and then, like a sentient and rational existence, this wonderful creation of his hands cleaves oceans, breasts tides, defies tempests, and bears its living and jubilant freight around the globe. Now, take away intelligence from the ship-builder, and the steamship,--that miracle of human art,--falls back into a floating log; the log itself is lost; and the savage swimmer, bearing his dozen pounds on his back, alone remains.

And so it is, not in one department only, but in the whole circle of human labors. The annihilation of the sun would no more certainly be followed by darkness, than the extinction of human intelligence would plunge the race at once into the weakness and helplessness of barbarism. To have created such beings as we are, and to have placed them in this world, without the light of the sun, would be no more cruel than for a government to suffer its laboring classes to grow up without knowledge...

For the creation of wealth, then,--for the existence of a wealthy people and a wealthy nation,--intelligence is the grand condition. The number of improvers will increase, as the intellectual constituency, if I may so call it, increases. In former times, and in most parts of the world even at the present day, not one man in a million has ever had such a development of mind, as made it possible for him to become a contributor to art or science. Let this development precede, and contributions, numberless, and of inestimable value, will be sure to follow. That Political Economy, therefore, which busies itself about capital and labor, supply and demand, interest and rents, favorable and unfavorable balances of trade; but leaves out of account the element of a wide-spread mental development, is nought but stupendous folly. The greatest of all the arts in political economy is, to change a consumer into a producer; and the next greatest is to increase the producer's producing power;--an end to be directly attained, by increasing his intelligence...

Political Education

The necessity of general intelligence,--that is, of education, (for I use the terms as substantially synonymous; because general intelligence can never exist without general education, and general education will be sure to produce general intelligence,)--the necessity of general intelligence, under a republican form of government, like most other very important truths, has become a very trite one. It is so trite, indeed, as to have lost much of its force by its familiarity. Almost all the champions of education seize upon this argument, first of all; because it is so simple as to be understood by the ignorant, and so strong as to convince the skeptical. Nothing would be easier than to follow in the train of so many writers, and to demonstrate, by logic, by history, and by the nature of the case, that a republican form of government, without intelligence in the people, must be, on a vast scale, what a mad-house, without superintendent or keepers, would be, on a small one;--the despotism of a few succeeded by universal anarchy, and anarchy by despotism, with no change but from bad to worse. Want of space and time alike forbid me to attempt any full development of the merits of this theme; but yet, in the closing one of a series of reports, partaking somewhat of the nature of a summary of former arguments, an omission of this topic would suggest to the comprehensive mind the idea of incompleteness.

That the affairs of a great nation or state are exceedingly complicated and momentous, no one will dispute. Nor will it be questioned that the degree of intelligence that superintends, should be proportioned to the magnitude of the interests superintended. He who scoops out a wooden dish needs less skill than the maker of a steam-engine or a telescope. The dealer in small wares requires less knowledge than the merchant who exports and imports to and from all quarters of the globe. An ambassador cannot execute his functions with the stock of attainments or of talents sufficient for a parish clerk. Indeed, it is clear, that the want of adequate intelligence,--of intelligence commensurate with the nature of the duties to be performed,--will bring ruin or disaster upon any department. A merchant loses his intelligence, and he becomes a bankrupt. A lawyer loses his intelligence, and he forfeits all the interests of his clients. Intelligence abandons a physician, and his patients die, with more than the pains of natural dissolution. Should judges upon the bench be bereft of this guide, what havoc would be made of the property and the innocence of men! Let this counsellor be taken from executive officers, and the penalties due to the wicked would be visited upon the righteous, while the rewards and immunities of the righteous would be bestowed upon the guilty. And so, should intelligence desert the halls of legislation, weakness, rashness, contradiction, and error would glare out from every page of the statute book. Now, as a republican government represents almost all interests, whether social, civil or military, the necessity of a degree of intelligence adequate to the due administration of them all, is so self-evident, that a bare statement is the best argument.

But in the possession of this attribute of intelligence, elective legislators will never far surpass their electors. By a natural law, like that which regulates the equilibrium of fluids, elector and elected, appointer and appointee, tend to the same level. It is not more certain that a wise and enlightened constituency will refuse to invest a reckless and profligate man with office, or discard him if accidentally chosen, than it is that a foolish or immoral constituency will discard or eject a wise man. This law of assimilation, between the choosers and the chosen, results, not only from the fact that the voter originally selects his representative according to the affinities of good or of ill, of wisdom or of folly, which exist between them; but if the legislator enacts or favors a law which is too wise for the constituent to understand, or too just for him to approve, the next election will set him aside as certainly as if he had made open merchandise of the dearest interests of the people, by perjury and for a bribe. And if the infinitely Just and Good, in giving laws to the Jews, recognized the "hardness of their hearts," how much more will an earthly ruler recognize the baseness or wickedness of the people, when his heart is as hard as theirs! In a republican government, legislators are a mirror reflecting the moral countenance of their constituents. And hence it is, that the establishment of a republican government, without well-appointed and efficient means for the universal education of the people, is the most rash and fool-hardy experiment ever tried by man. Its fatal results may not be immediately developed,--they may not follow as the thunder follows the lightning,--for time is an element in maturing them, and the calamity is too great to be prepared in a day; but, like the slow-accumulating avalanche, they will grow more terrific by delay, and, at length, though it may be at a late hour, will overwhelm with ruin whatever lies athwart their path. It may be an easy thing to make a Republic; but it is a very laborious thing to make Republicans; and woe to the republic that rests upon no better foundations than ignorance, selfishness, and passion. Such a Republic may grow in numbers and in wealth. As an avaricious man adds acres to his lands, so its rapacious government may increase its own darkness by annexing provinces and states to its ignorant domain. Its armies may be invincible, and its fleets may strike terror into nations on the opposite sides of the globe, at the same hour. Vast in its extent, and enriched with all the prodigality of nature, it may possess every capacity and opportunity of being great, and of doing good. But if such a Republic be devoid of intelligence, it will only the more closely resemble an obscene giant who has waxed strong in his youth, and grown wanton in his strength; whose brain has been developed only in the region of the appetites and passions, and not in the organs of reason and conscience; and who, therefore, is boastful of his bulk alone, and glories in the weight of his heel and in the destruction of his arm. Such a Republic, with all its noble capacities for beneficence, will rush with the speed of a whirlwind to an ignominious end; and all good men of after-times would be fain to weep over its downfall, did not their scorn and contempt at its folly and its wickedness, repress all sorrow for its fate. . . .

However elevated the moral character of a constituency may be; however well informed in matters of general science or history, yet they must, if citizens of a Republic, understand something of the true nature and functions of the government under which they live. That any one who is to participate in the government of a country, when he becomes a man, should receive no instruction respecting the nature and functions of the government he is afterwards to administer, is a political solecism. In all nations, hardly excepting the most rude and barbarous, the future sovereign receives some training which is supposed to fit him for the exercise of the powers and duties of his anticipated station. Where, by force of law, the government devolves upon the heir, while yet in a state of legal infancy, some regency, or other substitute, is appointed, to act in his stead, until his arrival at mature age; and, in the meantime, he is subjected to such a course of study and discipline, as will tend to prepare him, according to the political theory of the time and the place, to assume the reins of authority at the appointed age. If, in England, or in the most enlightened European monarchies, it would be a proof of restored barbarism, to permit the future sovereign to grow up without any knowledge of his duties,--and who can doubt that it would be such a proof,--then, surely, it would be not less a proof of restored, or of never-removed barbarism, amongst us, to empower any individual to use the elective franchise, without preparing him for so momentous a trust. Hence, the constitution of the United States, and of our own State, should be made a study in our Public Schools. The partition of the powers of government into the three co-ordinate branches,--legislative, judicial, and executive,--with the duties appropriately devolving upon each; the mode of electing or of appointing all officers, with the reason on which it was founded; and, especially, the duty of every citizen, in a government of laws, to appeal to the courts for redress, in all cases of alleged wrong, instead of undertaking to vindicate his own rights by his own arm; and, in a government where the people are the acknowledged sources of power, the duty of changing laws and rulers by an appeal to the ballot, and not by rebellion, should be taught to all the children until they are fully understood.

Had the obligations of the future citizen been sedulously inculcated upon all the children of this Republic, would the patriot have had to mourn over so many instances, where the voter, not being able to accomplish his purpose by voting, has proceeded to accomplish it by violence; where, agreeing with his fellow-citizens, to use the machinery of the ballot, he makes a tacit reservation, that, if that machinery does not move according to his pleasure, he will wrest or break it? If the responsibleness and value of the elective franchise were duly appreciated, the day of our State and National elections would be among the most solemn and religious days in the calendar. Men would approach them, not only with preparation and solicitude, but with the sobriety and solemnity, with which discreet and religious-minded men meet the great crises of life. No man would throw away his vote, through caprice or wantonness, any more than he would throw away his estate, or sell his family into bondage. No man would cast his vote through malice or revenge, any more than a good surgeon would amputate a limb, or a good navigator sail through perilous straits, under the same criminal passions.

But, perhaps, it will be objected, that the constitution is subject to different readings, or that the policy of different administrations has become the subject of party strife; and, therefore, if any thing of constitutional or political law is introduced into our schools, there is danger that teachers will be chosen on account of their affinities to this or that political party; or that teachers will feign affinities which they do not feel, in order that they may be chosen; and so each schoolroom will at length become a miniature political club-room, exploding with political resolves, or flaming out with political addresses, prepared, by beardless boys, in scarcely legible hand-writing, and in worse grammar.

With the most limited exercise of discretion, all apprehensions of this kind are wholly groundless. There are different readings of the constitution, it is true; and there are partisan topics which agitate the country from side to side; but the controverted points, compared with those about which there is no dispute, do not bear the proportion of one to a hundred. And what is more, no man is qualified, or can be qualified, to discuss the disputable questions, unless previously and thoroughly versed in those questions, about which there is no dispute. In the terms and principles common to all, and recognized by all, is to be found the only common medium of language and of idea, by which the parties can become intelligible to each other; and there, too, is the only common ground, whence the arguments of the disputants can be drawn.

It is obvious, on the other hand, that if the tempest of political strife were to be let loose upon our Common Schools, they would be overwhelmed with sudden ruin. Let it be once understood, that the schoolroom is a legitimate theatre for party politics, and with what violence will hostile partisans struggle to gain possession of the stage, and to play their parts upon it! Nor will the stage be the only scene of gladiatorial contests. These will rage in all the avenues that lead to it. A preliminary advantage, indispensable to ultimate success, will be the appointment of a teacher of the true faith. As the great majority of the schools in the State are now organized, this can be done only by electing a prudential committee, who will make what he calls political soundness paramount to all other considerations of fitness. Thus, after petty skirmishings among neighbors, the fierce encounter will begin in the district's primary assembly,--in the schoolroom itself. This contest being over, the election of the superintending, or town's committee, must be determined in the same way, and this will bring together the combustibles of each district, to burn with an intenser and a more devouring flame, in the town meeting. It is very possible, nay, not at all improbable, that the town may be of one political complexion, while a majority of the districts are of the opposite. Who shall moderate the fury of these conflicting elements, when they rage against each other; and who shall save the dearest interests of the children from being consumed in the fierce combustion? If parents find that their children are indoctrinated into what they call political heresies, will they not withdraw them from the school; and, if they withdraw them from the school, will they not resist all appropriations to support a school from which they derive no benefit?

But, could the schools, themselves, survive these dangers for a single year, it would be only to encounter others still more perilous. Why should not the same infection that poisons all the relations of the schoolroom, spread itself abroad, and mingle with all questions of external organization and arrangement? Why should not political hostility cause the dismemberment of districts, already too small; or, what would work equal injury, prevent the union of districts, whose power of usefulness would be doubled by a combination of their resources? What better could be expected, than that one set of school books should be expelled, and another introduced, as they might be supposed, however remotely, to favor one party or the other; or, as the authors of the books might belong to one party or the other? And who could rely upon the reports, or even the statistics of a committee, chosen by partisan votes, goaded on by partisan impulses, and responsible to partisan domination; and this, too, without any opportunity of control or check from the minority? Nay, if the schools could survive long enough to meet the crisis, why should not any and every measure be taken, either to maintain an existing political ascendancy, or to recover a lost one, in a school district, or in a town, which has even been taken by unscrupulous politicians, to maintain or to recover an ascendancy at the polls? Into a district, or into a town, voters may be introduced from abroad, to turn the scale. An employer may dismiss the employed, for their refusal to submit to his dictation; or make the bread that is given to the poor man's children, perform the double office of payment for labor to be performed, and of a bribe for principle to be surrendered. And, beyond all this, if the imagination can conceive any thing more deplorable than this, what kind of political doctrines would be administered to the children, amid the vicissitudes of party domination,--their alternations of triumph and defeat? This year, under the ascendancy of one side, the constitution declares one thing: and commentaries, glosses, and the authority of distinguished names, all ratify and confirm its decisions. But victory is a fickle goddess. Next year, the vanquished triumph; and constitution, gloss, and authority, make that sound doctrine, which was pestilent error before, and that false, which was true. Right and wrong have changed sides. The children must now join in chorus to denounce what they had been taught to reverence before, and to reverence what they had been taught to denounce. In the mean time, those great principles, which, according to Cicero, are the same at Rome and at Athens, the same now and forever;--and which, according to Hooker, have their seat in the bosom of God, become the fittest emblems of chance and change.

Long, however, before this series of calamities would exhaust itself upon our schools, these schools themselves would cease to be. The plough-share would have turned up their foundations. Their history would have been brought to a close,--a glorious and ascending history, until struck down by the hand of political parricide; then, suddenly falling with a double ruin,--with death, and with ignominy. But to avoid such a catastrophe, shall all teaching, relative to the nature of our government, be banished from our schools; and shall our children be permitted to grow up in entire ignorance of the political history of their country? In the schools of a republic, shall the children be left without any distinct knowledge of the nature of a republican government; or only with such knowledge as they may pick up from angry political discussions, or from party newspapers; from caucus speeches, or Fourth of July orations,--the Apocrypha of Apocrypha?

Surely, between these extremes, there must be a medium not difficult to be found. And is not this the middle course, which all sensible and judicious men, all patriots, and all genuine republicans, must approve?--namely, that those articles in the creed of republicanism, which are accepted by all, believed in by all, and which form the common basis of our political faith, shall be taught to all. But when the teacher, in the course of his lessons or lectures on the fundamental law, arrives at a controverted text, he is either to read it without comment or remark; or, at most, he is only to say that the passage is the subject of disputation, and that the schoolroom is neither the tribunal to adjudicate, nor the forum to discuss it.

Such being the rule established by common consent, and such the practice, observed with fidelity under it, it will come to be universally understood, that political proselytism is no function of the school; but that all indoctrination into matters of controversy between hostile political parties is to be elsewhere sought for, and elsewhere imparted. Thus, may all the children of the Commonwealth receive instruction in the great essentials of political knowledge,--in those elementary ideas without which they will never be able to investigate more recondite and debatable questions;--thus, will the only practicable method be adopted for discovering new truths, and for discarding,--instead of perpetuating,--old errors; and thus, too, will that pernicious race of intolerant zealots, whose whole faith may be summed up in two articles,--that they, themselves, are always infallibly right, and that all dissenters are certainly wrong,--be extinguished,--extinguished, not by violence, nor by proscription, but by the more copious inflowing of the light of truth.

Source: Lawrence A. Cremin, ed., The Republic and the School: Horace Mann on the Education of Free Men (1957), 79-80, 84-97.

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Report No. 12 of the Massachusetts School Board (1848)

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The European tradition of education centered in the family rather than in schools did not take root in the United States, because the pattern of the extended family--several generations living under one roof--disappeared on the frontier. As families moved to take advantage of free land, the old educational patterns broke down, and new forms were generated.

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How the Other Half Lives, Jacob A. Riis, 1890

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How the Other Half Lives, Jacob A. Riis, 1890

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“LONG ago it was said that ‘one half of the world does not know how the other half lives.’ That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the struggles, and less for the fate of those who were underneath, so long as it was able to hold them there and keep its own seat.”

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Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890) | The American Yawp Reader

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Jacob Riis, a Danish immigrant, combined photography and journalism into a powerful indictment of poverty in America. His 1890, How the Other Half Lives shocked Americans with its raw depictions of urban slums. Here, he describes poverty in New York.

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“To separate them [children in grade and high schools]

from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone... We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

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Transcript

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) (USSC+)

Argued December 9, 1952

Reargued December 8, 1953

Decided May 17, 1954

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS*

Syllabus

Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment -- even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors of white and Negro schools may be equal.

(a) The history of the Fourteenth Amendment is inconclusive as to its intended effect on public education.

(b) The question presented in these cases must be determined not on the basis of conditions existing when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, but in the light of the full development of public education and its present place in American life throughout the Nation.

(c) Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

(d) Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal.

(e) The "separate but equal" doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, has no place in the field of public education.

(f) The cases are restored to the docket for further argument on specified questions relating to the forms of the decrees.

Opinion

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases come to us from the States of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. They are premised on different facts and different local conditions, but a common legal question justifies their consideration together in this consolidated opinion.

In each of the cases, minors of the Negro race, through their legal representatives, seek the aid of the courts in obtaining admission to the public schools of their community on a nonsegregated basis. In each instance, they had been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to race. This segregation was alleged to deprive the plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment. In each of the cases other than the Delaware case, a three-judge federal district court denied relief to the plaintiffs on the so-called "separate but equal" doctrine announced by this Court in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537. Under that doctrine, equality of treatment is accorded when the races are provided substantially equal facilities, even though these facilities be separate. In the Delaware case, the Supreme Court of Delaware adhered to that doctrine, but ordered that the plaintiffs be admitted to the white schools because of their superiority to the Negro schools.

The plaintiffs contend that segregated public schools are not "equal" and cannot be made "equal," and that hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws. Because of the obvious importance of the question presented, the Court took jurisdiction. Argument was heard in the 1952 Term, and reargument was heard this Term on certain questions propounded by the Court.

Reargument was largely devoted to the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. It covered exhaustively consideration of the Amendment in Congress, ratification by the states, then-existing practices in racial segregation, and the views of proponents and opponents of the Amendment. This discussion and our own investigation convince us that, although these sources cast some light, it is not enough to resolve the problem with which we are faced. At best, they are inconclusive. The most avid proponents of the post-War Amendments undoubtedly intended them to remove all legal distinctions among "all persons born or naturalized in the United States." Their opponents, just as certainly, were antagonistic to both the letter and the spirit of the Amendments and wished them to have the most limited effect. What others in Congress and the state legislatures had in mind cannot be determined with any degree of certainty.

An additional reason for the inconclusive nature of the Amendment's history with respect to segregated schools is the status of public education at that time. In the South, the movement toward free common schools, supported by general taxation, had not yet taken hold. Education of white children was largely in the hands of private groups. Education of Negroes was almost nonexistent, and practically all of the race were illiterate. In fact, any education of Negroes was forbidden by law in some states. Today, in contrast, many Negroes have achieved outstanding success in the arts and sciences, as well as in the business and professional world. It is true that public school education at the time of the Amendment had advanced further in the North, but the effect of the Amendment on Northern States was generally ignored in the congressional debates. Even in the North, the conditions of public education did not approximate those existing today. The curriculum was usually rudimentary; ungraded schools were common in rural areas; the school term was but three months a year in many states, and compulsory school attendance was virtually unknown. As a consequence, it is not surprising that there should be so little in the history of the Fourteenth Amendment relating to its intended effect on public education.

In the first cases in this Court construing the Fourteenth Amendment, decided shortly after its adoption, the Court interpreted it as proscribing all state-imposed discriminations against the Negro race. The doctrine of "separate but equal" did not make its appearance in this Court until 1896 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, supra, involving not education but transportation. American courts have since labored with the doctrine for over half a century. In this Court, there have been six cases involving the "separate but equal" doctrine in the field of public education. In Cumming v. County Board of Education, 175 U.S. 528, and Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78, the validity of the doctrine itself was not challenged. In more recent cases, all on the graduate school level, inequality was found in that specific benefits enjoyed by white students were denied to Negro students of the same educational qualifications. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337; Sipuel v. Oklahoma, 332 U.S. 631; Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629; McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637. In none of these cases was it necessary to reexamine the doctrine to grant relief to the Negro plaintiff. And in Sweatt v. Painter, supra, the Court expressly reserved decision on the question whether Plessy v. Ferguson should be held inapplicable to public education.

In the instant cases, that question is directly presented. Here, unlike Sweatt v. Painter, there are findings below that the Negro and white schools involved have been equalized, or are being equalized, with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers, and other "tangible" factors. Our decision, therefore, cannot turn on merely a comparison of these tangible factors in the Negro and white schools involved in each of the cases. We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education.

In approaching this problem, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868, when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896, when Plessy v. Ferguson was written. We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation. Only in this way can it be determined if segregation in public schools deprives these plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws.

Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.

In Sweatt v. Painter, supra, in finding that a segregated law school for Negroes could not provide them equal educational opportunities, this Court relied in large part on "those qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness in a law school." In McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, supra, the Court, in requiring that a Negro admitted to a white graduate school be treated like all other students, again resorted to intangible considerations: ". . . his ability to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession." Such considerations apply with added force to children in grade and high schools. To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. The effect of this separation on their educational opportunities was well stated by a finding in the Kansas case by a court which nevertheless felt compelled to rule against the Negro plaintiffs:

Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.

Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority. Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected.

We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Because these are class actions, because of the wide applicability of this decision, and because of the great variety of local conditions, the formulation of decrees in these cases presents problems of considerable complexity. On reargument, the consideration of appropriate relief was necessarily subordinated to the primary question -- the constitutionality of segregation in public education. We have now announced that such segregation is a denial of the equal protection of the laws. In order that we may have the full assistance of the parties in formulating decrees, the cases will be restored to the docket, and the parties are requested to present further argument on Questions 4 and 5 previously propounded by the Court for the reargument this Term The Attorney General of the United States is again invited to participate. The Attorneys General of the states requiring or permitting segregation in public education will also be permitted to appear as amici curiae upon request to do so by September 15, 1954, and submission of briefs by October 1, 1954.

It is so ordered.

* Together with No. 2, Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al., on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, argued December 9-10, 1952, reargued December 7-8, 1953; No. 4, Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al. , on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, argued December 10, 1952, reargued December 7-8, 1953, and No. 10, Gebhart et al. v. Belton et al., on certiorari to the Supreme Court of Delaware, argued December 11, 1952, reargued December 9, 1953.

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EnlargeDownload Link Citation: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Opinion; May 17, 1954; Records of the Supreme Court of the United States; Record Group 267; National Archives. View All Pages in the National Archives Catalog View Transcript In this milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional.

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Gov. George Wallace, Jan 14, 1963 Inaugural Speech, Montgomery, AL

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Gov. George Wallace, Jan 14, 1963 Inaugural Speech, Montgomery, AL

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“In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust. . . and I say . . . segregation today . . . segregation tomorrow . . . segregation forever.”

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Inaugural address of Governor George Wallace in 1963

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“The struggle to make equality for all people a fundamental tenant in our society continues.”

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New Jersey Chief Justice Deborah Poritz, 2004

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New Jersey Chief Justice Deborah Poritz, 2004

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“...we have paid lip service to the idea of diversity in our schools, but in the real world we have not succeeded.”

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Follow the story of a public school and the "nice white parents" that shape it.

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Episode One: The Book of Statuses (Published 2020)

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From Serial and The New York Times: “Nice White Parents” looks at the 60-year relationship between white parents and the public school down the block.

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Honorable Judge Robert L. Carter of the United States of America - an Essex County, New Jersey resident in his youth, and one of the chief architects for the legal strategy that led to the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, May 17,1954

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Audio clips of what White citizens and members of Citizens Councils had to say about integration, specifically in schools.

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The Citizens' Council, founded in Indianola, Mississippi in 1954 following the Brown v. Board decision, was very powerful in working to maintain segregation in Mississippi. The Citizens' Council radio Forum ran from 1957-1966 and features dozens of national and Mississippi politicians, including John Stennis, James Eastland, George Wallace, and Strom Thurmond, and covers topics ranging from reaction to the Civil Rights Act to the fear of Communism. Mississippi State University Libraries is the only repository who has the complete run of the Forum; thanks to a $25,000 Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources, the original open reel magnetic audio tapes were digitized by the Northeast Document Conservation Center and are now available to researchers.

Digital Audio
10th anniversary of Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of education. 1954--Supreme Court decision. 1957 Civil Rights Act and related court cases. 1957 Civil Rights Act--court decisions. 1964 fall term of U.S. Supreme Court. 2 most important issues before Senate--Civil Rights act and Bible reading and prayer in public schools. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals--cases on integration New Orleans schools,transportation systems, public schools. Address to Mississippi legislature--our present military situation in Vietnam and future. Anti-riot bill. Assassination of President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. August 28 march on Washington. A woman's viewpoint on the issues of the South. Balanced budget. Bill to create a commission on human resettlement. Bill to create a commission on human resettlement. Bill to curb powers of Supreme Court. Biology of the race problem. California views on Little Rock and Supreme Court decisions. Centralization of power, trends against. Circuit riders, inc. Citizens' Council survey of Jackson, Mississippi. Citizens' Council survey of Jackson, Mississippi. Civil defense program--church implications. Civil Rights act. Civil Rights act of 1963. Civil Rights bill. Civil Rights bill. Civil Rights bill. Civil Rights bills. Civil Rights bills. Civil Rights bills. Civil Rights bills. Civil Rights bills. Civil Rights demonstrations. Civil Rights legislation. Civil Rights legislation. Civil Rights legislation. Civil Rights legislation. Civil Rights legislation. Civil Rights Legislation and the Constitution. Civil Rights legislation--views of Hawaii Civil Rights proposal. Civil Rights proposal. Civil Rights workers in Mississippi. College loyalty oaths. Commentary on socialist activities of the school. Comments on the outcome of the Presidential election. Committee on Un-American Activities and its functions. Also William Colmer, John Bell Williams, Jamie Whitten. Communism and Civil Rights. Communism and the Civil Rights movement. Communism in the U.S. and Fulbright Memorandum Communism on the map. Communist agitation and riot tactics in the U.S. Communist exploitation of the churches in the U.S. Communist infiltration in Vietnam protest movement and Civil Rights movement. Communist influence behind the racial demonstrations and Civil Rights movement-recent development. Communist involvement in Civil Rights movement. Communists in racial incidents. Communist threat of U.S. muzzling the military--Fulbright Memorandum. Communist threat to U.S. Communist use of churches--nation council of churches of Christ in America. Concern over civil rights bill-involvement of communism with the civil rights movement. Connections between freedom riders and Cuba. Conservative trend on college campuses. Constitutional government and states rights. Constitutional Rights--Civil Rights Crisis in Rhodesia. Cuban crisis-Florida viewpoint. Also economic and military aspects. Cuban military build-up. Cuban situation. Cuban situation. Cuban situation--U.S. policies and the Factors for Castro Committee. Cuban situation--variance in intelligence reports. Current crisis in race relations--Harlem, Rochester,etc. Current Status of schools in Alabama. Deficit spending. Demonstration before the march from Selma to Montogomery--affadavits presented to congress. Demonstrations in Selma. Doctrine of interposition enacted by Barnett at Ole Miss. Education in D.C. Education work of the Citizens' Council. Effect of agitation on southern political opinion. Effect of Civil Rights legislation on business, especially in the South. Effect of Civil Rights on the presidential election. Effect of Kennedy sending federal troops into Ole Miss in future national elections. Effects of Civil Rights act on average American. Effects of Civil Rights legislation on South in the 1960 election. Executive order on discrimination in housing. Extent of communist exploitation of the churches. Factors affecting internal security. Farm Problem. Federal aid to education. Federal Civil Rights commission. Federal Government forcing school integration. Federal intervention in Mississippi affairs. Forceable integration of public schools. Foreign aid. Freedom Academy. Freedom of choice in education.

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Citizens' Council Radio Forum | Manuscripts Division | Mississippi State University

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The Citizens' Council, founded in Indianola, Mississippi in 1954 following the Brown v. Board decision, was very powerful in working to maintain segregation in Mississippi. The Citizens' Council radio Forum ran from 1957-1966 and features dozens of national and Mississippi politicians, including John Stennis, James Eastland, George Wallace, and Strom Thurmond, and covers topics ranging from reaction to the Civil Rights Act to the fear of Communism.

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Governor of Arkansas is interviewed on Brown V. Board of Education and equates the issue to states rights and law and order- rather than admitting the issue of racism

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Governor of Arkansas is interviewed on Brown V. Board of Education and equates the issue to states rights and law and order- rather than admitting the issue of racism

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Williams: Since the SC segregation decisions in 1954, you have become the central figure in the most serious constitutional crisis that has arisen since the war for southern independence. What is the real issue in this controversy?

Faubus: Well, Congressman Williams, the real and basic issue is very often submerged with what we sometimes term the extraneous matter. The real basic issue is the separation
of powers as set up by the founding fathers and continued on to the present time. The real issue is the usurpation of powers reserved to the states by the federal government without going through the proper processes of amendment of the constitution. You find it very clearly illustrated in the writings of Jefferson which I’ve quoted quite extensively since the controversy arose. The real usurpation, of course, has been by the United States Supreme Court without any basis for the assumption of that power. Not only in the field
which has always been reserved to the states, the field of education, but in other fields the Supreme Court has stepped in. ... And writing to me recently was a person who wrote thusly, ‘It has been said that it is not so much the separation of the races as the continued separation of powers, federal, state and local, which guarantees the liberty of all races. And that I think, Congressman Williams, is the central issue in this whole conflict. It is not confined to Arkansas, it is not confined to the South, you find it in many fields throughout the nation.

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17min 34sec, 7 1/2 IPS, Higher recording level; moderate hiss; slight distortion. Good Condition.

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In the same interview as the one above, the Governor (like Mike in our play), believes that Black schools are better funded, better schools. He also accuses activists of using fundraising  money for personal use- a tale as old as time. 

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In the same interview as the one above, the Governor (like Mike in our play), believes that Black schools are better funded, better schools. He also accuses activists of using fundraising  money for personal use- a tale as old as time. 

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Faubus: Now, no one disagrees with the thought of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, that is a phrase with which all can agree, and in
Little Rock and in Arkansas, we’ve been mindful of that. And in fact, when the controversy arose over the forcible integration of the schools in the city of Little Rock,
you find that the students who left Horace Mann High School to enter Central High School…

Williams: Horace Mann was the colored high school…

Faubus: …Were leaving the colored high school, Horace Mann, which is far more modern than Central, only about four or five years old and incidentally rated fifth in the nation for being modern, utilitarian and beautiful. The degrees of the teachers in that school were higher than the degrees on average of the teachers in Central High School. Central High School is thirty years old, Horace Mann is four or five years old. So, they were leaving a finer school with better qualified teachers so far as the academic standards are concerned, and entering another school. Therefore, people who know the situation well could draw the conclusion that it was not a matter of advancement educationally of the students but was the promotion of these people who were the leaders who are on a paid basis because Mrs. Bates who headed the program is the paid worker for the NAACP in Arkansas, and incidentally, I have in my files information showing that over the country they’ve held testimonial dinners for her where funds are raised for her personal use. It said on the basis of repairing her home that had been bombed eleven times, which is untrue.

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Millburn Township School District is a top rated, public school district located in MILLBURN, NJ. It has 4,697 students in grades PK, K-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 13 to 1. According to state test scores, 83% of students are at least proficient in math and 88% in reading.

Millburn Township School District Rankings

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Excellent people, good education, met a ton of friends and bonded over extracurriculars! It was a great experience and I learned a ton at my school. The school encourages excellence academically and extracurricularly.

Start Your Review of Millburn Township School District

Millburn schools not only prepare its students to excel in future educational endeavors, but they also teach students about hard work and ingenuity. Teachers are always there to help, which is fantastic! The students are highly competitive, which pushes each student to do his or her best, however, this competition also causes certain students to bring others down for their own personal gain. Ultimately, the resources and activities at MHS are amazing for its students and each person takes advantage of these opportunties to its fullest.

Award-winning schools, best in the state! Have a unique, vibrant learning environment with passionate educators and motivated bright students.

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millburn township school district ratings

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Explore Millburn Township School District

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Millburn Township School District is a top rated, public school district located in MILLBURN, NJ. It has 4,697 students in grades PK, K-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 13 to 1. According to state test scores, 83% of students are at least proficient in math and 88% in reading.

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Newark High School is a public school located in NEWARK, OH. It has 1,502 students in grades 9-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 22 to 1. According to state test scores, 53% of students are at least proficient in math and 70% in reading.

Newark High School Rankings

Niche ranks nearly 100,000 schools and districts based on statistics and millions of opinions from students and parents.

Note: School map boundaries may have changed for the current school year. Please contact your school district to verify school assignment for your child.

What I liked about Newark High School the most was easily the teachers. You can tell a lot of them are dedicated and hardworking individuals, determined to help you however possible. The problem I have with the school, though, instead lies with the administrative faculty. I feel they overlook the concerns, or criticisms, of the students and focus on only what they think is best. This leads to a lot of good programs being overlooked and underfunded because they don't see them as important. Overall, this makes students feel unimportant and forgotten in their own school. While the great teachers help pick up some slack, a definite management change is needed.

Start Your Review of Newark High School

I have been a part of Newark High school for all four years. I feel that the district does attempt to do its very best for the students attending the high school. I myself was able to grow within the system and environment that they had created. I was able to achieve my goals and gain knowledge for my future. But what I wish that they included was more interaction with individual students and individual student focus. I feel that large class sizes left some students to be left out of conversations and discussions. The district also focused more on those on sports teams than those accomplishing just as much within clubs or with amazing grades and effort. I believe that more individual focus instead of on large groups and "stereotypes" would allow for more students to feel included within the school and district.

I enjoy everything about Newark High School. In my opinion I do not believe that there is anything that needs to be changed or done differently. However some of my classmates disagree, a lot of them think that there isn't a need for dress codes, our lunches are to short, and the hall monitor is to mean when it comes to tardy. I believe that all of those things are necessary and have a purpose of why it is the way that it is.

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Newark High School is a public school located in NEWARK, OH. It has 1,502 students in grades 9-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 22 to 1. According to state test scores, 53% of students are at least proficient in math and 70% in reading.

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Newark Mapped by Ethnicity- 1911

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When the general public learns about the Italian immigration to the United States during the 1880s to the 1920s, they usually see it through the lens of those who settled in New York City on Mulberry Street. Unless of course they happen to live in a city with a Little Italy of their own. But even then, the stories of Italian immigrants in New York dominate the historical narrative.

There were actually many other cities where Italian immigrants settled and created communities of their own. There may be some similarities to the Mulberry Street, Little Italy, but generally, the likenesses are superficial. Only through looking deeper at the histories of all the Italian settlements can one truly understand the Italian American experience in the United States.

The book Newark's Little Italy: The Vanished First Ward, published in 1997, tells the history of one of the larger Italian settlements outside of New York City. In fact, it was one of the first cities outside of New York with a significant Italian community, having the fifth largest population of Italians at the turn of the 20 th century. Now known as Seventh Avenue Newark, the First Ward was Newark New Jersey's original Little Italy. It was settled by Italian immigrants beginning in the 1870s.

Author Michael Immerso is a writer and publicist who has written other books and articles, but this one was personal for him. His grandparents and other relatives lived in the First Ward. At Sunday dinners and other family gatherings, stories of the neighborhood would always come up in conversation. The stories were told fondly, with humor and a longing for what once was, and included lots of colorful characters.

The family stories of the old neighborhood made Immerso very curious to learn more. He set about writing a family history, but found scant resources available about the neighborhood. Realizing this gap in the historical record, Immerso decided he would write a history of the First Ward that would encompass more than just his family's memories. He reached out to the community requesting photographs, stories and documents, and partnered with the Newark Public Library to create an archive to hold these priceless materials.

The response Immerso received to the request for information on the First Ward was overwhelming. He received over 60,000 photographs, selected 500 to place in the Newark Library's archive, and used 160 of those to visually tell the history of the neighborhood in his book. The photographs are captivating and communicate volumes about the lives of the Italian immigrants, their families, their businesses, and their culture.

Immerso presents the history of the neighborhood both chronologically and by breaking it down into subjects that encapsulate the major parts of life in the enclave. The book begins with a discussion about the areas in Italy from where the majority of the Italians emigrated. This includes a number of towns from the province of Campania, such as Teora, Caposele, Calabritto, and Monocalzati. It ends with a tragic and heartbreaking story of neighborhood destruction.

A fascinating part of the introductory section is the story of the very first Italian to come to the First Ward. The man's name was Angelo Maria Mattia. Mattia landed in New York in 1872 with 27 men, all from the town of Calabritto. In the Avellino Province. While looking for a job he mistakenly boarded a ferry that took him to Newark. Realizing there were lots of jobs available in what he called "Nevarca," he told his paisani to join him there and they did. Being the first in the neighborhood earned him the nickname "Colombo."

Immerso found this amazing story about Mattia through a diary kept by Mattia's son, Peter. The request Immerso published in the newspaper brought the diary to him, along with oral histories and many other written documents. These rare resources allowed Immerso to include fascinating stories and anecdotes that relate the inner workings of the community and the character of its people in a personal way.

Stories of the street peddlers, family relations, children's games, and tragedies combined with the photographs enliven what otherwise could have been a dry historical narrative. One of the more interesting stories relates to the funerary practices of the neighborhood. Funerals were a community-wide event, often including a procession with a band. In 1920, cobbler Emidio Russomanno's pet canary choked on a watermelon seed and died. Having loved the canary, Russomanno organized the typical funerary procession and thousands attended to view the canary being carried in his six-by-12-inch coffin.

The neighborhood came to its end in the post-World War II period, which was expected. Many urban neighborhoods emptied in the 1940s and 1950s, as their inhabitants moved to newer housing in the suburbs. Compared to the rate this affected other communities, however, the flight out of the First Ward was relatively low. The main factor causing the disintegration of the neighborhood in 1953, which came as a bit of surprise, was developers and the city government. They made people give up homes and move against their will, bulldozing in days what took 80 years to build.

Newark's Little Italy: The Vanished First Ward is a well-done community history that documents a long-gone neighborhood important to history of Italian American in the United States. It contains rare, rich photographs with detailed captions that greatly compliment the brief, yet detailed text. Anyone interested in learning more about Italian immigration to the United States during the 1870s-1920s, Italian American communities, or the history of Newark, New Jersey, will enjoy this book.
This review first appeared in the September 2020 issue of La Nostra Voce, ISDA's 28-page monthly newspaper, which chronicles Italian life, culture and traditions. Join ISDA and subscribe today.

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The Vanishing of the First Ward, Newark's Original Little Italy

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By: Pamela Dorazio Dean, La Nostra Voce When the general public learns about the Italian immigration to the United States during the 1880s to the 1920s, they usually see it through the lens of those who settled in New York City on Mulberry Street. Unless of course they happen to live in a city with ...

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Overview of the history leading to the unrest in 1967

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Overview of the history leading to the unrest in 1967

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The Newark Riots: A 1967 Uprising That Changed America (Unique Coloring)

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What is redistricting?

Redistricting is the regular process of adjusting the lines of voting districts in accordance with population shifts. For many states, this means redrawing congressional and state legislative district lines every ten years following the decennial census. In the modern era of redistricting, all district lines must be reviewed after the census to meet strict requirements for population equality and voting rights protections.

How does redistricting differ from reapportionment?

Reapportionment is the process of reassigning congressional seats among the states after the Census. Once Census 2010 population counts were released, the number of representatives each state could send to Congress was determined. At that point, reapportionment was over and redistricting had begun! All states, even those that did not gain or lose districts, still must redraw district boundaries in order to match internal population shifts. The end goal? Equal numbers of people in every district, nationwide.

What is gerrymandering?

Gerrymandering is the act of redrawing district lines to influence elections to favor a particular party, candidate, ethnic group. While the Voting Rights Act strongly protects against racial gerrymanders, manipulating the lines to favor a political party is common. In other cases, the parties work together to draw a plan that favors the incumbents of both parties.

For more information on redistricting:

The Brennan Center's "A Citizen's Guide to Redistricting 2010 Edition"
NAACP, MALDEF, and Asian-American Justice Center's "The Impact of Redistricting in YOUR Community"

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What is redistricting? Redistricting is the regular process of adjusting the lines of voting districts in accordance with population shifts. For many states, this means redrawing congressional and state legislative district lines every ten years following the decennial census.

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MILLBURN -- A possible resolution to a 15-year dispute between a Short Hills rabbi and Millburn township officials - in the shape of a 16,000-square-foot synagogue - has roused stern resistance from a group of neighbors.

Rabbi Mendel Bogomilsky and his wife, Rivkah, who also run the Chai Center for Living Judaism on Millburn Avenue, maintain they have only been hosting prayer services for friends and neighbors at their home on Jefferson Avenue.

Township officials, though, say the Bogomilskys have been holding much larger religious services without the requisite permits.

Plans for the synagogue, which would be built on adjoining lots off of Old Short Hills Road, grew out of an agreement between the Bogomilskys and the township following a number of legal actions, including lawsuits and countersuits.

The lots, set among multi-million dollar mansions in the rustic Short Hills, would total less than 2 acres. The township's zoning regulations, though, say that a house of worship can't be built on less than 3 acres.

The Bogomilskys' requests to the township's zoning board, though, have drawn the ire of a group of township residents who say that if it were approved, the synagogue would create an unwelcome precedent and allow other so-called beneficial use developments -- such as housing and day-care centers -- in areas not otherwise zoned for them.

Aryeh Liwschitz, a Park Circle resident and a member of the Concerned Neighborhood Association of Millburn Township, said approving the synagogue could send a signal that the township is much too flexible when it comes to zoning issues.

"We just feel that would set a bad precedent because other types of inherently beneficial-use properties could then creep into lots that are not zoned for them," Liwschitz said.

But an attorney for the Bogomilskys says the residents association -- whose membership is at least one-third Jewish, according to one person associated with it -- is using that rationale as a pretense for organized opposition to Orthodox Judaism.

Philip Pfeffer said the residents' opposition to the synagogue represents "a growing disdain" for Orthodox Judaism, one of the religions's most traditional strains.

"People just don't want this sort of community in the neighborhood," Pfeffer said. "They want to say it, but they can't say it."

Michael Becker, a consultant to the residents' association, calls that characterization grossly inaccurate.

"It has nothing to do with religion," Becker said. "If you wanted to build church or a nursing home on the same property, you'd have the same issue."

Until the zoning issue is resolved, which could happen as early as at the board's March 15 meeting, the compromise calls for the Bogomilskys to keep prayer services at their Jefferson Avenue home small. In return, the township rescinded numerous fines it had doled out against the couple.

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Neighbors protest plan to build synagogue in Short Hills

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MILLBURN -- A possible resolution to a 15-year dispute between a Short Hills rabbi and Millburn township officials - in the shape of a 16,000-square-foot synagogue - has roused stern resistance from a group of neighbors. Rabbi Mendel Bogomilsky and...

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Erin Petenko and Disha Raychaudhuri | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

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Why minorities in N.J. are more likely to be denied mortgages, explained

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Find out which residents get approved for loans in your community.

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Court 'vindicates' synagogue in Millburn zoning fight

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An Essex County Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the Chai Center Shul at Short Hills, sending the Orthodox synagogue's expansion plans back to the Millburn Township Zoning Board of Adjustment for re-adjudication. The May 31 decision by the Hon.

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The Newark School District is the largest and one of the oldest school systems in New Jersey. Its origin dates back to 1676. Barringer High School, in Newark's North Ward, is the third oldest public high school in the nation. Grounded in our rich history, the Newark Board of Education continues to offer new opportunities [...]

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District Anti-Bullying Coordinator,
Dr. Kate Diskin
Asst. Superintendent
434 Millburn Avenue,
Millburn, NJ 07041

973-376-3600, x40154
[email protected]
Click for specialists at each school and more HIB information

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District Anti-Bullying Coordinator, Dr. Kate DiskinAsst. Superintendent434 Millburn Avenue,Millburn, NJ 07041 973-376-3600, x40154 [email protected] Click for specialists at each school and more HIB information

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An ad for the LINQ Address Authenticator (disguised as an article)

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An ad for the LINQ Address Authenticator (disguised as an article)

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The Real Cost of Address or Residency Fraud for K-12 Schools

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One of the challenges that public schools face is ensuring that all enrolled students register with legitimate addresses. Enrollment fraud, also known as address fraud or residency fraud, is the act of falsifying one's residence to gain access to a public school.

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Racism In America- Short Documentary from 1950

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Racism In America- Short Documentary from 1950

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This video features interviews with average White people responding to integration.

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Racism in America: Small Town 1950s Case Study Documentary Film

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Judge Robert L. Carter Video Tribute by Lisa Marie Boykin & Mark T. Chapman

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School Security Dominates Millburn Board of Education Meeting Discussion

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MILLBURN, N.J. - The recent school shooting in Parkland, FL spurred discussions on what more can be done to secure Millburn town schools. Anxious parents called for a...

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Newark Families in Every Ward Will Be Able to Select Specialized Elementary Schools By 2025

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NEWARK, NJ - Be it science, technology, performing arts or history, parents across Newark whose children will enter elementary school over the next five years have options to choose from if they...

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A recent investigation revealed that “steering” continues to be pervasive despite being illegal under the Fair Housing Act. Check out NAR’s guidance and learn how to avoid the prohibited practice here.

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The Los Angeles Unified School District's vision is that every student will receive a quality education in a safe, caring environment, and every high school graduate will be college prepared and career-ready. Zones of Choice has emerged as a strategy to increase the number of personalized educational options available to students. Zones of Choice are geographic areas comprised of multiple high school options. The small school options in each Zone are open to all resident students and represent the demographics of the local area. All school options offer college preparatory curriculum, A-G standards-based instruction, and preparation for college and careers.

La visión del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles es que cada estudiante reciba una educación de calidad en un ambiente cálido y seguro, y cada graduado esté preparado para la universidad y una profesión. Las Zonas de Opción han surgido como una estrategia para aumentar el número de opciones educativas disponibles a los estudiantes. Las Zonas de Opción son áreas geográficas compuestas de múltiples opciones escolares. Las opciones de escuelas pequeñas en cada zona están abiertas a todos los estudiantes residentes y representan la demografía del área local. Todas las escuela de opción ofrecen un currículo preparatorio para la universidad, instrucción basada en los estándares A-G, y preparación para la universidad y una profesión.

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The Los Angeles Unified School District's vision is that every student will receive a quality education in a safe, caring environment, and every high school graduate will be college prepared and career-ready. Zones of Choice has emerged as a strategy to increase the number of personalized educational options available to students.

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A choice of words, coded communication, or other symbolic aspect of self-presentation that is superficially unobjectionable or neutral but conveys a secondary message aimed at those who affiliate with a controversial group or fringe ideology, usually signaling one’s own affinity for such beliefs.

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A term used for commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental slights, that communicate biased, hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups.

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One of the main differences between a microaggression and a dog whistle is the intended audience. Microaggressions are aimed directly at marginalized people. Dog whistles, however, speak directly to the dogs they're intended for.

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Interactive Map: Segregation Continues to Be NJ’s State of the State

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Interactive Map: Segregation Continues to Be NJ’s State of the State

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What was your inspiration to write this play?

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What was your inspiration to write this play?

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Was there was an event in or around 2009/ 2010 that inspired this story?

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Was there was an event in or around 2009/ 2010 that inspired this story?

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This play was written in 2014. Do you think this issue of residency fraud as gotten better or worse over the past 8 years?

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This play was written in 2014. Do you think this issue of residency fraud as gotten better or worse over the past 8 years?

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What was it like to write a play with 2 Black women at the center?

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What was it like to write a play with 2 Black women at the center?

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We know that these issues exist around the country, but what is about Newark and New Jersey that makes it a ripe location for this story?

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What is your hope for Beverly and Denitra's future?

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What is your hope for Beverly and Denitra's future?

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In your opinion: Integration or Segration? 

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In your opinion: Integration or Segration? 

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In the tradition of many other Black plays, this play deals with a central issue in the Black community around integration and whether or not it is a good thing.

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WINNERS TAKE ALL

The Elite Charade of

Changing the World

An insider's groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite's efforts to "change the world" preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve.

Former New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas takes us into the inner sanctums of a new gilded age, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can-except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it. We see how they rebrand themselves as saviors of the poor; how they lavishly reward "thought leaders" who redefine "change" in winner-friendly ways; and how they constantly seek to do more good, but never less harm. We hear the limousine confessions of a celebrated foundation boss; witness an American president hem and haw about his plutocratic benefactors; and attend a cruise-ship conference where entrepreneurs celebrate their own self-interested magnanimity.

Giridharadas asks hard questions: Why, for example, should our gravest problems be solved by the unelected upper crust instead of the public institutions it erodes by lobbying and dodging taxes? He also points toward an answer: Rather than rely on scraps from the winners, we must take on the grueling democratic work of building more robust, egalitarian institutions and truly changing the world. A call to action for elites and everyday citizens alike.
Praise
"Provocative and passionate . . . This damning portrait of contemporary American philanthropy is a must-read for anyone interested in 'changing the world.'" -Publishers Weekly (boxed and starred review)

"Anyone following the debate about the role of philanthrocapitalists, corporate foundations or tech billionaires in solving the world's problems will want to watch for this new book." -Jena McGregor, The Washington Post

"This is a very difficult subject to tackle, but Giridharadas executes it brilliantly . . . This must-have title will be of great interest to readers, from students to professionals and everyone in-between, interested in solutions to today's complex problems . . . Winners Take All will be the starting point of conversations private and in groups on alternatives to the status quo and calls to action. An excellent book for troubled times."

"In Anand's thought-provoking book his fresh perspective on solving complex societal problems is admirable. I appreciate his commitment and dedication to spreading social justice." - Bill Gates

"An insightful and refreshing perspective on some of the most vexing issues this nation confronts. This is an important book from a gifted writer whose honest exploration of complex problems provides urgently needed clarity in an increasingly confusing era." - Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy

"A trenchant, humane, and often revelatory investigation by one of the wisest nonfiction writers going." - Katherine Boo, author of Behind the Beautiful Forevers

" Winners Take All is the book I have been waiting for-the most important intervention yet regarding elite-driven solutions, a vitally important problem to expose. The book courageously answers so many of the critical questions about how, despite much good will and many good people, we struggle to achieve progress in twenty-first-century America. If you want to be part of the solution, you should read this book." - Ai-jen Poo, director, National Domestic Workers Alliance

"A brilliant, rising voice of our era takes us on a journey among the global elite in his search for understanding of our tragic disconnect. Thought-provoking, expansive, and timely." - Isabel Wilkerson, author, The Warmth of Other Suns

" Winners Take All boldly exposes one of the great if little-reported scandals of the age of globalization: the domestication of the life of the mind by political and financial power and the substitution of 'thought leaders' for critical thinkers. It not only reorients us as we lurch out of a long ideological intoxication; it also embodies the values-intellectual autonomy and dissent-that we need to build a just society." - Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger

"In this trenchant and timely book, Anand Giridharadas shows how the winners of global capitalism seek to help the losers, but without disturbing the market-friendly arrangements that keep the winners on top. He gives us an incisive critique of corporate-sponsored charities that promote frictionless 'win-win' solutions to the world's problems but disdain the hard, contentious work of democratic politics. An indispensable guide for those perplexed by the rising public anger toward 'change-making' elites." - Michael J. Sandel, author of What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

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An insider's groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite's efforts to "change the world" preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve.

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Part of the Emergent Strategy Series. Self-help, society-help, and planet-help to shape the futures we want. A resolutely materialist spirituality based equally on science and science fiction: a wild feminist and afro-futurist ride!Inspired by Octavia Bu

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New York Times Bestseller * Notable Book of the Year * Editors' Choice Selection One of Bill Gates' "Amazing Books" of the Year One of Publishers Weekly 's 10 Best Books of the Year Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction An NPR Best Book of the Year Winner

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What do you want the audience to take away from this play?

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What do you want the audience to take away from this play?

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How do you pronounce... " Help You to Learn English with Youtube " YThi

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How do you pronounce weequahic in English? How to pronounce weequahic in English. Use Youtube to practice the pronunciation of weequahic in real conversation. " YThi

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Chapter 1: Notes on Surveillance Studies, Through the Door of No Return

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Chapter 1: Notes on Surveillance Studies, Through the Door of No Return

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Epilogue: When Blackness Enters the Frame

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Epilogue: When Blackness Enters the Frame

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Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness by Simone Browne 

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Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness by Simone Browne 

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- Racquel M. Gonzales, Feminist Media Studies

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- Brittany Meché, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography

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- Autumn Womack, American Literary History

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- Shaka McGlotten, American Journal of Sociology

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- Douglas Hartmann, Rutgers Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books

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-Racquel M. Gonzales, Feminist Media Studies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
-Brittany Meché, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography

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-Autumn Womack, American Literary History

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-Shaka McGlotten, American Journal of Sociology

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-Douglas Hartmann, Rutgers Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books

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"Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory and the Black Body" by Harvey Young

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"Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory and the Black Body" by Harvey Young

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In 1901, George Ward, a lynching victim, was attacked, murdered, and dismembered by a mob of white men, women, and children. As his lifeless body burned in a fire, enterprising white youth cut off his toes and, later, his fingers and sold them as souvenirs. In Embodying Black Experience , Harvey Young masterfully blends biography, archival history, performance theory, and phenomenology to relay the experiences of black men and women who, like Ward, were profoundly affected by the spectacular intrusion of racial violence within their lives. Looking back over the past two hundred years-from the exhibition of boxer Tom Molineaux and Saartjie Baartman (the "Hottentot Venus") in 1810 to twenty-first century experiences of racial profiling and incarceration-Young chronicles a set of black experiences, or what he calls, "phenomenal blackness," that developed not only from the experience of abuse but also from a variety of performances of resistance that were devised to respond to the highly predictable and anticipated arrival of racial violence within a person's lifetime.

Embodying Black Experience pinpoints selected artistic and athletic performances-photography, boxing, theater/performance art, and museum display-as portals through which to gain access to the lived experiences of a variety of individuals. The photographs of Joseph Zealy, Richard Roberts, and Walker Evans; the boxing performances of Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and Muhammad Ali; the plays of Suzan-Lori Parks, Robbie McCauley, and Dael Orlandersmith; and the tragic performances of Bootjack McDaniels and James Cameron offer insight into the lives of black folk across two centuries and the ways that black artists, performers, and athletes challenged the racist (and racializing) assumptions of the societies in which they lived.

Blending humanistic and social science perspectives, Embodying Black Experience explains the ways in which societal ideas of "the black body," an imagined myth of blackness, get projected across the bodies of actual black folk and, in turn, render them targets of abuse. However, the emphasis on the performances of select artists and athletes also spotlights moments of resistance and, indeed, strength within these most harrowing settings.

"Young's linkage between critical race theory, historical inquiry, and performance studies is a necessary intersection. Innovative, creative, and provocative."
-Davarian Baldwin, Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies, Trinity College

Praise / Awards

" Embodying Black Experience is performance studies scholarship at its engaged and engaging best."
- Theatre Journal

"Performance studies scholarship at its engaged and engaging best. Harvey Young's book contributes valuable detailed local readings of several sites of academic debate... a very significant contribution to our understanding of the performance of race, the performance of memory, and the phenomenology of the body."
- Theatre Journal

"Young provides an excellent rendering of the "black body" as screen for racializing projection, demonstrating how contemporary Americans "continue to share in the experiences of their ancestors who were viewed as 'other,' unjustly incarcerated, and subjected to limitless violence."
- Choice, T. F. DeFrantz, Duke University (Highly Recommended)

"Providing singularly fresh new readings of some of the ur-texts of African American studies ... Harvey Young's Embodying Black Experience also forge[s] new ground by placing these works in conversation with offerings that have as yet garnered scant scholarly attention."
--American Literature

"The innovative approaches to the Agassiz daguerrotypes... speak to important points of similarity and difference in current studies of early African American photography."
- American Studies

Winner of the National Communication Association's Lilla A. Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation and Performance Studies, 2011

Winner of the Errol Hill Award from the American Society for Theatre Research

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In 1901, George Ward, a lynching victim, was attacked, murdered, and dismembered by a mob of white men, women, and children. As his lifeless body burned in a fire, enterprising white youth cut off his toes and, later, his fingers and sold them as souvenirs. In Embodying Black Experience , Harvey...

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"It is not that all black people have the same experience; it is, rather, that a remarkable similarity, a repetition with a difference, exists among embodied black experiences. Unlike other studies that interrogate the lived realities and social performances of black folk, the emphasis here is not on the scalar differences that separate one person from another but on those moments of experiential overlap that frequently create common and, perhaps, shared understandings among black folk of the similar ways in which they are viewed and treated is not that all black people have the same experience; it is, rather, that a remarkable similarity, a repetition with a difference, exists among embodied black experiences. Unlike other studies that interrogate the lived realities and social performances of black folk, the emphasis here is not on the scalar differences that separate one person from another but on those moments of experiential overlap that frequently create common and, perhaps, shared understandings among black folk of the similar ways in which they are viewed and treated."

Young, Harvey. Embodying Black Experience (Theater: Theory/Text/Performance) (p. 5). University of Michigan Press. Kindle Edition.

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A Fanonian Perspective on Double Consciousness

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The post-colonial thinker’s seminal book, “The Wretched of the Earth,” described political oppression in psychological terms. What are its lessons for our current moment?

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Scholars have for some time commented upon the peculiar use of the
word ‘‘signifying’’ in black discourse. Though sharing some connotations
with the standard English-language word, ‘‘signifying’’ has rather unique
definitions in black discourse. Roger D. Abrahams defines it as follows:
Signifying seems to be a Negro term, in use if not in origin. It can mean any
of a number of things; in the case of the toast about the signifying monkey, it
certainly refers to the trickster’s ability to talk with great innuendo, to carp,
cajole, needle, and lie. It can mean in other instances the propensity to talk
around a subject, never quite coming to the point. It can mean making fun of
a person or situation. Also it can denote speaking with the hands and eyes,
and in this respect encompasses a whole complex of expressions and gestures. Thus it is signifying to stir up a fight between neighbors by telling
stories; it is signifying to make fun of a policeman by parodying his motions
behind his back; it is signifying to ask for a piece of cake by saying, ‘‘my
brother needs a piece of cake.’’∫
Essentially, Abrahams concludes, signifying is a ‘‘technique of indirect argument or persuasion,’’ ‘‘a language of implication,’’ ‘‘to imply, goad, beg,
boast, by indirect verbal or gestural means.’’

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Signifying is a trope in which are subsumed several other rhetorical tropes, including metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony (the master tropes), and also hyperbole and litotes, and metalepsis (Bloom’s supplement to Burke). To this list we could easily add aporia, chiasmus, and catechesis, all of which are used in the ritual of signifying. 

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Signifying is a trope in which are subsumed several other rhetorical tropes, including metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony (the master tropes), and also hyperbole and litotes, and metalepsis (Bloom’s supplement to Burke). To this list we could easily add aporia, chiasmus, and catechesis, all of which are used in the ritual of signifying. 

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Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. (Drowning in work)

Metonymy: a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept. (referring to the entire financial instition of America as simply "Wall Street")

Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa (mouths in "hungry mouths to feed"; and wheels referring to a car.

Irony (the master tropes): the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. (don't everybody get up at once- when nobody has stood up)

Hyperbole: exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally. (I could eat a horse)

Litotes: ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary (you won't be sorry meaning you will be glad)

Metalepsis: a figure of speech in which a word or a phrase from figurative speech is used in a new context. ("I've got to catch the worm tomorrow." from the common phrase "The early bird catches the worm" )

Aporia: an expression of real or pretended doubt or uncertainty especially for rhetorical effect (I am at no loss for information about you and your family; but I am at a loss where to begin)

Chiasmus:  a two-part sentence or phrase, where the second part is a reversal of the first. (“When the going gets tough, the tough get going”)

Catachresis:  a semantic misuse or error, also the name given to many different types of figures of speech in which a word or phrase is being applied in a way that significantly departs from conventional (or traditional) usage. (Mow the beard, Shave the grass)