“Happy Land” Versus “East-of-the-River”: Racialized Spatial Imaginaries and School Choice in Washington, DC

• In Event: Intersections of Race and Class in Urban School Choice

Abstract

The 2020 United States Census shows the population is becoming increasingly racially diverse. These changes suggest schools could become diverse, but scholarship during the last several decades shows that schools remain segregated (Candipan, 2019). Black students in urban and rural places across the country often remain in racially isolated and underfunded schools (Orfield & Jarvie, 2020; Kebede et al., 2021). Urban schools are also embedded in a policy ecosystem where enrollment policies in cities are moving toward school choice models. Choice has the potential to diversify, but also may further segregation (Kotok et al., 2017).

While there is plenty of research on segregation, racial change, and choice separately, there is less on the confluence of these issues and their effects on an urban education ecosystem. The purpose of this paper is to use a novel theoretical and investigative approach to identify how the urban ecosystem is being reimagined and how emergent spatial perceptions shape school enrollment patterns in Washington, D.C., a city that has experienced racial change and implemented a common application lottery system during the last three decades. This context allows us to explore types of spatial perceptions, how they are racialized, and how they shape school choice patterns.

The study uses a critical geographic framework of spatial imaginaries to examine how school choice policies unfold, particularly in areas where notions of place are changing (e.g., gentrification or racial change). This framework elevates critical understandings of place to show how place perceptions shape responses to choice policy. This knowledge is essential because it captures how place and race-neutral assumptions in choice policy fail to capture socially constructed spatial understandings that shape school segregation.This study achieves these theoretical goals by using a mixed-methods GIS approach to combine qualitative perceptions of spatial imaginaries to quantitative data of school waitlist popularity to understand popularity of school choices in the city. To do so, we examine the following research questions:

1. How do residents in Washington, D.C. idealize and racialize places in the city?
2. How do these idealizations shape perceptions about school choice options?
3. How do school type and popularity relate to these idealizations?
4. What do the qualitative and quantitative methods together reveal about space and school enrollment patterns relating to choice, racial change, and segregation?

The findings of this study show that places are indeed racialized and these racializations feed into the type and popularity of schools in given locations. For example, in the wealthier and whiter “happy land for school choice” (participant’s quote) the schools are popular traditional public schools; whereas in “east of the river” (several participants’ quote) the schools are a mix of racially isolated traditional public schools and network charter schools. Schools here are less popular than in any other idealized location in the city, even when taking into account their measures of academic quality and school resources. The findings elevate the notion that popularity is tied to more than school quality. It is reflective of place, race, and prestige.

Authors

• Bryan Mann, University of Kansas

• Alexander Bittel, University of Kansas