Study Explores Attendance Boundaries and the Segregation of Public Schools in the U.S.

A study released by the American Economic Association seeks to understand school segregation across the U.S. by focusing on policy choices such as attendance boundaries and school-siting. Based on assessments of the distance-minimizing assignment of students to schools and whether actual assignments differ systematically by race, the study finds that attendance boundaries result in greater rates of integration and that school-siting plays a less significant role. The study relies on U.S. census data with attendance boundary maps from nearly 1,600 school districts. Read the study here.