Fractured: The Breakdown of America's School Districts

The United States is crisscrossed by lines, the boundaries of roughly 13,000 school districts. But this map is hardly etched in stone; in fact, just in the last two years, more than two dozen communities have tried to redraw the lines to their advantage.

Why the constant changes? In large part, because American school districts are funded substantially out of local property tax dollars. This ties school budgets to local wealth levels—and that means great rewards for those who can redefine “local.” When district boundaries are redrawn, and in particular when a small, affluent community fences itself off, those on the fortunate side of the line can keep their tax revenues just for their hyperlocal schools. Meanwhile, those on the outside are often left with fewer resources for a needier student population.

Thirty states have processes codified in state law for towns and neighborhoods to secede from their school districts, and since 2017 two states have even made it easier for communities to wall themselves off. Procedures range from the simple—a majority vote in the breakaway neighborhood—to complicated, multistep processes involving state approval. Policies are often structured without consideration for either the efficiency of the system or the welfare of the children left behind. When lax secession policies are combined with funding systems that are rooted in local property taxes, well-off communities are encouraged to pull away.

This kind of gerrymandering is shockingly common. 128 communities have attempted to secede from their school districts since 2000—a number that continues to grow. Of these, seventy-four have been successful at splitting from their districts, and another sixteen secessions  are ongoing. Twenty-seven secession attempts have been defeated (red), and eleven secession efforts have become inactive (gray).

Once these lines are drawn, their effects are very real and long-lasting. In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court case Milliken v. Bradley gave school system boundaries near-sacred status with a ruling that, except in very narrow circumstances, states cannot order the desegregation of schools across district lines. Once a border exists, it marks a unit of government that others are bound to respect. As a result, district lines may divide students by race or class, and there is little that can be done. In this way, every line drawn is a new fracture in the map of American communities.
 
Full report including interactive map and case studies from three states.