"All Schools Are Not Created Equal": An Analysis of Public Comments on School Rezoning

• In Event: Accepting Responsibility for (In)Equity in Education? Critical Policy Analysis Across Contexts

Abstract

School segregation by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status is linked to deep-seated educational inequality (Horsford, 2019). A key driver of school segregation are the boundaries dividing students into schools within districts. These boundaries, or school attendance zones, often fracture systems along race and class, stratifying families, students and critical educational resources and opportunities along the way (Holzman, 2012). Research also suggests school zones designed to bring together disparate neighborhoods, populations and associated resources can reduce segregation and, by extension, reimagine how school communities are configured (Frankenberg et al., 2017).
Arguments for or against school rezoning are embedded in racial and political narratives belonging and access to opportunity. Historically, research indicates white and affluent families are central actors in rezoning, seeking to influence the process to their advantage (Siegel-Hawley, 2016). Though communities of color have also mobilized in responds to segregative rezoning, the uneven nature of white and affluent parents’ involvement in school rezoning has implications for democratic engagement and ways dominant narratives serve to reinforce educational inequities.
We critically examine the school rezoning process by analyzing approximately 5,000 public comments captured in two school districts’ rezoning initiatives in Virginia from 2019-2020. Both school districts, one urban and one suburban, are undergoing rapid demographic shifts and voted to address racial and/or socioeconomic diversity through school rezoning. To analyze public comments, we combine insights from narrative policy analysis and critical policy analysis as our methodological and analytical approach to highlight “the centrality of narratives in understanding policy issues, problems, definitions, and outcomes” (McBeth, 2007). This combined approach allows us to explore the “racial storylines” (Bonilla-Silva, 2003) undergirding schools’ rezoning policy process.
Preliminary results from a small, random sample of comments (n=47) highlight three emerging findings. First, efforts to preserve boundary lines related to parents’ concerns about longer distances to newly designated schools and resulting disruptions to students’ and families’ social relationships. Embedded within these comments are presumed attitudes about social and cultural capital and ways that networks function to benefit advantaged children and maintain segregation.
Overt echoes of past resistance to busing as a means of dismantling racial inequality in schools were also evident (e.g., Delmont, 2016). We also find that comments are disproportionately and overwhelmingly represented from neighborhoods with more white, middle-class families. This second finding illustrates missed opportunities for school district leaders to strategically engage underrepresented communities who were equally affected by school rezoning. Finally, although a few comments acknowledged that “all schools are not created equal;” resistance to school rezoning reflects how white property and white interests are continually upheld through educational systems and policies (Harris, 1993). Specifically, one comment suggested school rezoning was “unnecessary” given the negative outcomes on property taxes: “As a result of the rezoning, you will see the property value of [the community] decrease significantly, which translates to less property tax income for the city.” Such comments reveal the inextricable ways schools and neighborhoods are linked and how spatial inequalities are perpetuated. Findings from this study will inform more equitable political decision-making processes and outcomes of school rezoning.

Authors

• Andrene Castro, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Genevieve Parker Siegel-Hawley, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Kim Bridges, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Sarah Haden, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Shenita Williams, Virginia Commonwealth University