Economic Housing Integration Promotes Academic Achievement

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The education reform debate is dominated by efforts to make high-poverty schools work better, but a new report released by The Century Foundation suggests that a more promising strategy involves providing low-income families a chance to live in more-advantaged neighborhoods, where their children can attend low-poverty public schools.

The Century Foundation study, Housing Policy Is School Policy, conducted by Heather Schwartz of the RAND Corporation, compares two strategies being used by Montgomery County, Maryland, that have shown promising results for their public schools, a highly acclaimed system that is a finalist for the prestigious Broad Prize in education. On the one hand, Montgomery County school officials have poured extra resources into about half of the district's higher-poverty elementary schools designated as being part of the "red zone." The extra resources allow for specialized instruction, reduced class sizes in grades K-3, and intensive teacher development. On the other hand, the county's "inclusionary zoning" housing policy, dating back to the mid-1970s, creates an opportunity for the children of low-income families in public housing to attend more-affluent "green zone" schools in the county (which spend less per student than red zone schools). Under the housing policy, developers of large subdivisions are required to set aside 12-15 percent of units for moderate- and low-income families, and the public housing authority can purchase up to one-third of the apartments. Schwartz's study traces the academic progress of 850 public housing students in red and green zone elementary school between 2001 and 2007.

Among the study's key findings are the following:

- By the end of elementary school, students in public housing who attend more-affluent green zone schools through the inclusionary housing program cut the achievement gap with non-poor students in the district by one-half in math, and by by one-third in reading.

- Despite the district's extra investments in its most disadvantaged (red zone) schools, by the end of elementary school, children living in public housing who attended lower poverty (green zone) schools far outperformed their public housing peers in red zone schools. The size of the effect from attending a low-poverty (green zone) school for children living in public housing in math was 0.4 compared with attending a higher-poverty (red zone) school. This low-poverty effect is quite large relative to other educational interventions, where research has often identified an effect of approximately 0.1 on student test scores.

- The educational benefits of socioeconomic integration are significant, but they take time. Only after four years in the district did public housing children in low-poverty schools notably outperform public housing children in the district's moderate-poverty schools.

The findings are particularly powerful because families who apply for public housing in Montgomery County are randomly assigned to their homes by lottery. In this way, the study minimizes the "self selection" effects that cloud much educational research. Urban research consultant David Rusk calls Schwartz's research "the definitive study of the impact of economic integration in the classroom on low income children's school achievement levels."

Currently, approximately 80 school districts across the country consider socioeconomic status as a factor in assigning students to schools. More than one hundred municipalities employ "inclusionary zoning" policies of the type used in Montgomery County, Maryland.