It is justifiable to say that students living in high-poverty neighborhoods and attending high-poverty schools may suffer in terms of gaining the utmost out of their education. The Washington Post in its article entitled, “How zoning policies affect student achievement,” document a solution to this. A study done by the Brookings Institution proves how zoning laws that don’t allow inexpensive housing in affluent neighborhoods and policies that require schools to select students based on their socioeconomic status – what kind of neighborhood that parents can afford to live in – are actually reducing the educational opportunity for low-income students.
Some key points in the article include:
- Housing is 2.4 times more expensive near high-scoring schools than near low-scoring schools
- Study analyzed test score data across 35 states and found that low-income students perform better in higher-scoring schools (middle-class) than in high-poverty schools
- Montgomery County, Maryland in 2010 gave low-income students the opportunity to live in lower-poverty neighborhoods and attend lower-poverty schools
- 80 school districts in U.S. that educate 4 million students who were selected based on their socioeconomic status to break up poverty concentations
Different studies cited in the article press on the same point – inclusionary housing policies and socioeconomic school integration should be encouraged. Test scores of students in Montgomery County, Maryland showed that low-income students performed better when placed in better environments in terms of home and school compared to those that lived and are educated in high-poverty areas. The Brookings report wishes to diminish the zoning laws that discriminate against students due to their socioeconomic status – thereby taking away an opportunity from them for a better future.
To Turn this into a Story
- Locate low-poverty neighborhoods and schools in your city and analyze the concentration of low-income students among middle-class and affluent ones
- Discuss with policy advocates on their views about educational zoning laws in the city
- A possible story angle could be: Change in the educational life of a low-income student when he/she went from living and studying in a high-poverty area to a lower-poverty one
- Be sure to include specific selection criteria of students as required by the State
Poverty Reporting and Commentary from across the web:
Columbia Daily Tribune: Spending grows, shifts in fight on poverty, with mixed results
Reading Eagle: New face of poverty: the crime connection
Columbia Daily Tribune: Defining situational vs. generational poverty
The Seattle Times: Tavis Smiley, Cornel West bring poverty-awareness tour to Seattle