Integrating Schools in a Changing Society: New Policies and Legal Options for a Multiracial Generation

11. Is Class Working? Socioeconomic Student Assignment Plans in Wake County, North Carolina, and Cambridge, Massachusetts

208 GENEVIEVE SIEGEL-HAWLEY Is Class Working? Socioeconomic Student Assignment Plans in Wake County, North Carolina, and Cambridge, Massachusetts Two forces—rapidly changing student demographics and a judicial system largely unreceptive to the implementation of racial desegregation, though not necessarily hostile to its underlying goals1—have combined to create a challenging environment for school districts interested in pursuing educational equality through voluntary integration policies. One of the by-products of these challenges has been a shift toward integration by socioeconomic status (SES), or assigning students to schools based on some measure of poverty. As districts around the country seek viable legal strategies to maintain voluntary racial integration plans, the notion that poverty status can be used as a means to desegregate schools is growing in popularity in many communities. It thus becomes increasingly important to examine the impact of SES-based integration plans in school districts already experimenting with the policy. Supporters of socioeconomic integration suggest that two broad rationales should drive its implementation: (1) SES integration can serve as a proxy for racial integration, especially given the unreceptive legal environment of today’s courts, and (2) SES integration will help deconcentrate poverty, which in turn will raise academic achievement.2 This essay will examine these claims in an effort to better understand the impacts of SES integration in Wake County, North Carolina—a metropolitan school system that includes the city of Raleigh—and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Wake County and Cambridge represent two places where SES diversity policies were pioneered in the early 2000s, though they vary significantly from one another in size, student demographics , and SES integration methods. Both districts also had prior racebased student assignment policies, permitting a closer look at whether SES integration successfully maintains earlier levels of racial desegregation. Further , the two districts have experienced different levels of political support for their SES policies. Given these characteristics, Wake County and Cambridge serve as important examples of the transition from racial integration to SES integration in two widely differing contexts. IS CLASS WORKING? 209 The following questions motivated this study: 1. Did the policy change from racial integration to SES integration deconcentrate poverty? 2. Did the shift from using race in student assignment policies to using SES help maintain racial integration? 3. What, if any, political pressures exist under SES student assignment policies? 4. Is SES integration associated with positive trends in student achievement? The first section of the essay provides a definition of SES integration, along with a brief discussion of how districts measure poverty status. The following portions examine the political context surrounding the Wake County and Cambridge assignment plans, in addition to presenting an analysis of racial and SES enrollment data and student-achievement outcomes.The essay closes with a discussion of implications that might be drawn from SES integration in these two districts. What Is Socioeconomic Integration? Many American communities continue to reflect long-standing patterns of segregation by race and poverty.3 SES-based plans generallyattempt to counteract these trends by distributing students from different income brackets more evenly across school districts. Income can be measured in a variety of ways, including parent education levels (which tend to be highly correlated with income ), family income, and eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch (FRL). The ready availability of the last measure prompts many districts operating under SES diversity plans to balance the number of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch in schools systemwide. Yet research shows that FRL data are not always reliable, and that caution should be exercised when basing an SES plan solely on free- and reduced-price lunch statistics.4 Data and Methods This investigation of SES integration in Wake County and Cambridge schools relied on a variety of primary and secondary sources. I analyzed materials from local media outlets, along with prior studies regarding the school dis- 210 GENEVIEVE SIEGEL-HAWLEY tricts, in an effort to grasp the historical context of the development of SES integration, as well as the current political climate in Wake County and Cambridge . I also culled school district websites for information regarding the details and development of the socioeconomic student assignment plans. And while demographic figures were available through the district—Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) in particular conducts extensive data collection in this area—this study utilizes enrollment information from the Common Core of Data of the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). The NCES collects enrollment data for...