The Impact of Attendance Zone "Gerrymandering" on Student Access to Diverse and High-Quality Schools

• In Event: The Causes and Consequences of School and Neighborhood Segregation

Abstract

In this study, we contribute to the emerging literature documenting how irregular or “gerrymandered” school attendance boundaries contribute to patterns of stratification by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status in schools. Using student-level administrative data including home addresses from a large urban district for the 2013-14 school year, we geocode each student’s address and calculate the drive time between their home and their zoned school and closest neighborhood school. Our preliminary findings suggest that “gerrymandered” educational boundaries result in students attending less racially/ethnically and socioeconomically diverse schools than they would if they attended their neighborhood schools. In addition, we find that gerrymandering serves to exacerbate racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in access to high-performing schools. We conclude with implications for research and policy.

Authors

• Meredith Paige Richards, Southern Methodist University

• Kori James Stroub, Rice University - Kinder Institute