Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools: Residential Segregation and the Search for a Good School

Preface

xi   Preface   Kimberly Goyette and Annette Lareau S chools vary enormously in the United States. Some, particularly those serving low-income children, have decrepit buildings, limited supplies, high rates of student turnover, unqualified teachers, and other formidable challenges. By contrast, other schools have woodpaneled offices, well-stocked supply cabinets, and highly trained teachers (Anyon 1997; Ingersoll 2001; Kozol 1991). Children are not randomly distributed into these schools; low-income children are much more likely to attend challenging schools. These patterns are not simply in urban settings; suburban neighborhoods are increasingly socially stratified. In addition, despite the growth of school choice programs, the most recent data suggest that 73 percent of children continue to attend a neighborhood school (U.S. Department of Education 2009). This volume centers on an important question that all families face: what kinds of schools will my children attend? In recent decades, attention to voucher programs, charter schools, and school transfer programs has increased. Federal legislation like the No Child Left Behind Act has given families the right to transfer schools under certain conditions. Schools, which may have once been perceived as part of the package of public goods associated with particular neighborhoods, are more often talked about as private “choices” that families make for the welfare of their children. Advocates of school choice policies ranging from controlled choice desegregation programs to magnet and charter schools to voucher programs , contend that one benefit of expanded choice is less social inequality across schools. They contend that increasing options for school choices should lessen school inequality for two reasons. First, students who are the most dissatisfied with their schools, often those in the worst schools, are afforded the opportunity to move into other schools with xii    Preface better resources, better instruction, or both. Second, because schools, including public schools, have to compete to enlist and retain students, all schools are motivated to provide their students with a competitive education (Chubb and Moe 1990; Coons and Sugarman 1978; Nathan 1989; Young and Clinchy 1992). Under the vision associated with increased choice, schools operate more like the private market. Consumers, who are the primary beneficiaries of schools under this vision, choose those places that best fit the needs of their children. Schools that do not meet the needs of parents and children suffer the consequences of a lack of demand— fewer resources and less funding—and then they ultimately close. Due to legislation like No Child Left Behind, and the increased availability of charter schools, transfer policies, and other increased school choice options, families in many locations, particularly those who live in cities, are not limited to their assigned neighborhood schools. In many places, they may choose schools outside their assigned areas or apply to charter or magnet schools. As of 2007, about 15.5 percent of school-age children attended a school of choice like a charter or magnet school, and about 11.3 percent attended a private school (U.S. Department of Education 2009). Proponents of increased school choice have applauded the expansion of these policies, arguing that families with fewer resources benefit from the separation of a family’s residential location and their school choice. For other families, though, assigned neighborhood schools are the schools their children attend. In fact, most children in the United States still attend their assigned neighborhood schools (U.S. Department of Education 2009). This may be because they make a very clear choice to live in a neighborhood to attend a particular school or as a result of a host of complex factors simply wind up in a particular residential location (Goyette 2008). The extent to which and how people make decisions about where to live and where to send their children to school (either jointly or separately ) has consequences for who lives where and what opportunities they have. As many scholars before us have argued, we assert that more than the type of house or apartment they live in and more than the availability of parks, shopping, or transportation, the types of schools children attend have consequences for their later life outcomes. Elementary, middle , and high schools most immediately affect whether the students who attend them expect to and then attend some sort of postsecondary education . For those who do, schools may influence the selectivity of those schools (Alexander and Eckland 1977). Beyond their further education, children’s schools may shape their future occupations, their citizenship, and their self-esteem (Alwin and Otto 1977; Banks 2008; Rowan-Kenyon et al. 2011; Simmons...