Fluent Essays

Answer one of the two questions below: 1. What are the political consequences for growing inequality? 2. As a mayor of a large city, what would be your first two steps (or more) to counter racial and school segregation? Why? by reading 2 articles attached Economic Policy Institute Presentation | March 6, 2014 MODERN SEGREGATION B Y R I C H A R D R O T H S T E I N A presentation to the Atlantic Live Conference, Reinventing the War on Poverty, March 6, 2014, Washington, D.C. i. Education Policy is Housing Policy We cannot substantially improve the performance of the poorest African American students – the “truly disadvantaged,” in William Julius Wilson’s phrase – by school reform alone. It must be addressed primarily by improving the social and economic conditions that bring too many children to school unprepared to take advantage of what schools have to offer. The conclusion rests on two distinct analyses: - First, social and economic disadvantage – not only poverty, but a host of associated conditions – depresses student performance, and - Second, concentrating students with these disadvantages in racially and economically homogenous schools depresses it further. The schools that the most disadvantaged black children attend today are segregated because they are located in segre- gated neighborhoods far distant from truly middle class neighborhoods. We cannot desegregate schools without deseg- regating these neighborhoods, and our ability to desegregate the neighborhoods in which segregated schools are located is hobbled by historical ignorance. Too quickly forgetting twentieth century history, we’ve persuaded ourselves that the residential isolation of low-income black children is only “de facto,” the accident of economic circumstance, personal preference, and private discrimination. But unless we re-learn how residential segregation is “de jure,” resulting from E CO N O M I C P O L I C Y I N S T I T U T E • 1 3 3 3 H S T R E E T, N W • S U I T E 3 0 0 , E A S T TO W E R • WA S H I N G TO N , D C 2 0 0 0 5 • 2 0 2 . 7 7 5 . 8 8 1 0 • W W W. E P I . O R G http://www.epi.org/people/richard-rothstein/ http://www.epi.org/ racially-motivated public policy, we have little hope of remedying school segregation that flows from this neighborhood racial isolation. The individual predictors of low achievement are well documented: With less access to routine and preventive health care, disadvantaged children have greater absenteeism, and they can’t benefit from good schools if they are not present. With less literate parents, they are read to less frequently when young, and are exposed to less complex language at home. With less adequate housing, they rarely have quiet places to study and may move more frequently, changing schools and teachers. With fewer opportunities for enriching after-school and summer activities, their background knowledge and orga- nizational skills are less developed. With fewer family resources, their college ambitions are constrained. As these and many other disadvantages accumulate, lower social class children inevitably have lower average achievement than middle class children, even with the highest quality instruction. When a school’s proportion of students at risk of failure grows, the consequences of disadvantage are exacerbated. In schools with high proportions of disadvantaged children, Remediation becomes the norm, and teachers have little time to challenge those exceptional students who can over- come personal, family, and community hardships that typically interfere with learning. In schools with high student mobility, teachers spend more time repeating lessons for newcomers, and have fewer opportunities to adapt instruction to students’ individual strengths and weaknesses. When classrooms fill with students who come to school less ready to learn, teachers must focus more on discipline and less on learning. Children in impoverished neighborhoods are surrounded by more crime and violence and suffer from greater stress that interferes with learning. Children with less exposure to mainstream society are less familiar with the standard English that’s necessary for their future success. When few parents have strong educations themselves, schools cannot benefit from parental pressure for higher qual- ity curriculum, Children have few college-educated role models to emulate, and They have few classroom peers whose own families set higher academic standards. Nationwide, low-income black children’s isolation has increased. It’s a problem not only of poverty but of race. E C O N O M I C P O L I C Y I N S T I T U T E | M A R C H 6 , 2 0 1 4 PA G E 2 http://www.epi.org/ The share of black students attending schools that are more than 90 percent minority has grown in the last twenty years from about 34 percent to about 40 percent. Twenty years ago, black students typically attended schools in which about 40 percent of their fellow students were low-income; it is now about 60 percent. In cities with the most struggling students, the isolation is even more extreme. The most recent data show, for example, that in Detroit, the typical black student attends a school where 2 percent of students are white, and 85 percent are low income. It is inconceivable that significant gains can be made in the achievement of black children who are so severely isolated. As I mentioned, this school segregation mostly reflects neighborhood segregation. In urban areas, low-income white students are more likely to be integrated into middle-class neighborhoods and less likely to attend school predominantly with other disadvantaged students. Although immigrant low-income Hispanic students are also concentrated in schools, by the third generation their families are more likely to settle in more middle-class neighborhoods. The racial segregation of schools has been intensifying because the segregation of neighborhoods has been intensifying. Analysis of Census data by Rutgers University Professor Paul Jargowsky has found that in 2011, 7 percent of poor whites lived in high poverty neighborhoods, where more than 40 percent of the residents are poor, up from 4 percent in 2000; 15 percent of poor Hispanics lived in such high poverty neighborhoods in 2011, up from 14 percent in 2000; and a breathtaking 23 percent of poor blacks lived in high poverty neighborhoods in 2011, up from 19 percent in 2000. In his 2013 book, Stuck in Place, the New York University sociologist Patrick Sharkey defines a poor neighborhood as one where 20 percent of the residents are poor, not 40 percent as in Paul Jargowsky’s work. A 20-percent-poor neigh- borhood is still severely disadvantaged. In such a neighborhood, many, if not most other residents are likely to have very low incomes, although not so low as to be below the official poverty line. Sharkey finds that young African Americans (from 13 to 28 years old) are now ten times as likely to live in poor neigh- borhoods, defined in this way, as young whites—66 percent of African Americans, compared to 6 percent of whites. What’s more, for black families, mobility out of such neighborhoods is much more limited than for whites. Sharkey shows that 67 percent of African American families hailing from the poorest quarter of neighborhoods a generation ago continue to live in such neighborhoods today. But only 40 percent of white families who lived in the poorest quarter of neighborhoods a generation ago still do so. Considering all black families, 48 percent have lived in poor neighborhoods over at least two generations, compared to 7 percent of white families. If a child grows up in a poor neighborhood, moving up and out to a middle-class area is typical for whites but an aberration for blacks. Black neighborhood poverty is thus more multigenerational, while white neighborhood poverty is more episodic. From the perspective of children, think of it this way: black children in low-income neighborhoods are more likely to have parents who also grew up in low-income neighborhoods than white or Hispanic children in low-income neighbor- hoods. The implications for children’s chances of success are dramatic: Sharkey calculates that “living in poor neighbor- hoods over two consecutive generations reduces children’s cognitive skills by roughly eight or nine points … roughly equivalent to missing two to four years of schooling.” E C O N O M I C P O L I C Y I N S T I T U T E | M A R C H 6 , 2 0 1 4 PA G E 3 http://www.epi.org/ And Sharkey has a final finding in this regard that is most startling of all: Children in poor neighborhoods whose moth- ers grew up in middle-class neighborhoods score only slightly below, on average, the average scores of children whose families lived in middle-class neighborhoods for two generations. But children who live in middle-class neighborhoods yet whose mothers grew up in poor neighborhoods score much lower. Sharkey concludes that “the parent’s environment during [her own] childhood may be more important than the child’s own environment.” Integrating disadvantaged black students into schools where more privileged students predominate can narrow the black-white achievement gap. But the conventional wisdom of contemporary education policy notwithstanding, segre- gated schools with poorly performing students cannot be “turned around” while remaining racially isolated. And the racial isolation of schools cannot be remedied without undoing the racial isolation of the neighborhoods in which they are located. ii. The Myth of De Facto Segregation In 2007, the Supreme Court made integration more difficult when it prohibited the Louisville and Seattle school dis- tricts from making racial balance a factor in assigning students to schools, in cases where applicant numbers exceeded available seats. The plurality opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts called student categorization by race unconstitutional unless designed to reverse effects of explicit rules that segregated students by race. Desegregation efforts, he ruled, are imper- missible if students are racially isolated, not as the result of government policy but because of societal discrimination, economic characteristics, or what Justice Clarence Thomas, in his concurring opinion, termed “any number of innocent private decisions, including voluntary housing choices.” In Roberts’ terminology, commonly accepted by policymakers from across the political spectrum, constitutionally for- bidden segregation established by federal, state or local government action is de jure, while racial isolation independent of state action, as, in Roberts’ view, like that in Louisville and Seattle, is de facto. It is generally accepted today, even by sophisticated policymakers, that black students’ racial isolation is now de facto, not only in Louisville and Seattle, but in all metropolitan areas, North and South. Even the liberal dissenters in the Louisville-Seattle case, led by Justice Stephen Breyer, agreed with this characterization. Breyer argued that school districts should be permitted voluntarily to address de facto racial homogeneity, even if not constitutionally required to do so. But he accepted that for the most part, Louisville and Seattle schools were not segre- gated by state action and thus not constitutionally required to desegregate. This is a dubious proposition. Certainly, Northern schools have not been segregated by policies assigning blacks to some schools and whites to others; they are segregated because their neighborhoods are racially homogenous. But neighborhoods did not get that way from “innocent private decisions” or, as the late Justice Potter Stewart once put it, from “unknown and perhaps unknowable factors such as in-migration, birth rates, economic changes, or cumulative acts of private racial fears.” E C O N O M I C P O L I C Y I N S T I T U T E | M A R C H 6 , 2 0 1 4 PA G E 4 http://www.epi.org/ In truth, residential segregation’s causes are both knowable and known – twentieth century federal, state and local poli- cies explicitly designed to separate the races and whose effects endure today. In any meaningful sense, neighborhoods and in consequence, schools, have been segregated de jure. Massey and Denton’s American Apartheid is the title of one book describing only a few of these many public policies. The title is no exaggeration. The notion of de facto segregation is a myth, although widely accepted in a national con- sensus that wants to avoid confronting our racial history. iii. De Jure Residential Segregation by Federal, State, and Local Government The federal government led in the establishment and maintenance of residential segregation in metropolitan areas. From its New Deal inception and especially during and after World War II, federally funded public housing was explicitly racially segregated, both by federal and local governments. Not only in the South, but in the Northeast, Midwest, and West, projects were officially and publicly designated either for whites or for blacks. Some projects were “integrated” with separate buildings designated for whites or for blacks. Later, as white families left the pro- jects for the suburbs, public housing became overwhelmingly black and in most cities was placed only in black neighborhoods, explicitly so. This policy continued one originating in the New Deal, when Harold Ickes, Presi- dent Roosevelt’s first public housing director, established the “neighborhood composition rule” that public housing should not disturb the pre-existing racial composition of neighborhoods where it was placed. This was de jure segregation. Once the housing shortage eased and material was freed for post-World War II civilian purposes, the federal gov- ernment subsidized relocation of whites to suburbs and prohibited similar relocation of blacks. Again, this was not implicit, not mere “disparate impact,” but racially explicit policy. The Federal Housing and Veterans Administra- tions recruited a nationwide cadre of mass-production builders who constructed developments on the East Coast like the Levittowns in Long Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware; on the West Coast like Lakeview and Panorama City in the Los Angeles area, Westlake (Daly City) in the San Francisco Bay Area, and several Seattle suburbs developed by William and Bertha Boeing; and in numerous other metropolises in between. These builders received federal loan guarantees on explicit condition that no sales be made to blacks and that each individual deed include a prohibition on re-sales to blacks, or to what the FHA described as an “incompatible racial element.” This was de jure segregation. In addition to guaranteeing construction loans taken out by mass production suburban developers, the FHA, as a matter of explicit policy, also refused to insure individual mortgages for African Americans in white neighborhoods, or even to whites in neighborhoods that the FHA considered subject to possible integration in the future. This was de jure segregation. Although a 1948 Supreme Court ruling barred courts from enforcing racial deed restrictions, the restrictions them- selves were deemed lawful for another 30 years and the FHA knowingly continued, until the Fair Housing Act was E C O N O M I C P O L I C Y I N S T I T U T E | M A R C H 6 , 2 0 1 4 PA G E 5 http://www.epi.org/ passed in 1968, to finance developers who constructed suburban developments that were closed to African-Ameri- cans. This was de jure segregation. Bank regulators from the Federal Reserve, Comptroller of the Currency, Office of Thrift Supervision, and other agencies knowingly approved “redlining” policies by which banks and savings institutions refused loans to black families in white suburbs and even, in most cases, to black families in black neighborhoods – leading to the deteri- oration and ghettoization of those neighborhoods. This was de jure segregation. Although specific zoning rules assigning blacks to some neighborhoods and whites to others were banned by the Supreme Court in 1917, racial zoning in some cities was enforced until the 1960s. The Court’s 1917 decision was not based on equal protection but on the property rights of white owners to sell to whomever they pleased. Several large cities interpreted the ruling as inapplicable to their zoning laws because their laws prohibited only residence of blacks in white neighborhoods, not ownership. Some cities, Miami the most conspicuous example, continued to include racial zones in their master plans and issued development permits accordingly, even though neighborhoods themselves were not explicitly zoned for racial groups. This was de jure segregation. In other cities, following the 1917 Supreme Court decision, mayors and other public officials took the lead in orga- nizing homeowners associations for the purpose of enacting racial deed restrictions. Baltimore is one example where the mayor organized a municipal Committee on Segregation to maintain racial zones without an explicit ordinance that would violate the 1917 decision. This was de jure segregation. You may recall that in the 1980s, the Internal Revenue Service revoked the tax-exemption of Bob Jones University because it prohibited interracial dating. The IRS believed it was constitutionally required to refuse a tax subsidy to a university with racist practices. Yet the IRS never challenged the pervasive use of tax-favoritism by universities, churches, and other non-profit organizations and institutions to enforce racial segregation. The IRS extended tax exemptions not only to churches where such associations were frequently based and whose clergy were their officers, but to the associations themselves, although their racial purposes were explicit and well-known. This was de jure segregation Churches were not alone in benefitting from unconstitutional tax exemptions. Consider this example: Robert Hutchins, known to educators for reforms elevating the liberal arts in higher education, was president and chancel- lor of the tax-exempt University of Chicago from 1929 to 1951. He directed the University to sponsor neighbor- hood associations to enforce racially restrictive deeds in its nearby Hyde Park and Kenwood neighborhoods, and employed the University’s legal department to evict black families who moved nearby in defiance of his policy, all while the University was subsidized by the federal government by means of its tax-deductible and tax-exempt status. This was de jure segregation. E C O N O M I C P O L I C Y I N S T I T U T E | M A R C H 6 , 2 0 1 4 PA G E 6 http://www.epi.org/ Urban renewal programs of the mid-twentieth century often had similarly undisguised purposes: to force low- income black residents away from universities, hospital complexes, or business districts and into new ghettos. Relo- cation to stable and integrated neighborhoods was not provided; in most cases, housing quality for those whose homes were razed was diminished by making public housing high-rises or overcrowded ghettos the only relocation option. This was de jure segregation. Where integrated or mostly-black neighborhoods were too close to white communities or central business districts, interstate highways were routed by federal and local officials to raze those neighborhoods for the explicit purpose of relocating black populations to more distant ghettos or of creating barriers between white and black neighborhoods. Euphemisms were thought less necessary then than today: according to the director of the American Association of State Highway Officials whose lobbying heavily influenced the interstate program, “some city officials expressed the view in the mid-1950′s that the urban Interstates would give them a good opportunity to get rid of the local ‘niggertown.’” This was de jure segregation. State policy contributed in other ways. Real estate is a highly regulated industry. State governments require brokers to take courses in ethics and exams to keep their licenses. State commissions suspend or even lift licenses for professional and personal infractions – from mishandling escrow accounts to failing to pay personal child support. But although real estate agents openly enforced segregation, state authorities did not punish brokers for racial discrimination, and rarely do so even today when racial steering and discriminatory practices remain. This misuse of regulatory authority was, and is, de jure segregation. Local officials have played roles as well. Public police and prosecutorial power was used nationwide to enforce racial boundaries. Illustrations are legion. In the Chicago area, police forcibly evicted blacks who moved into an apartment in a white neighborhood; in Louisville, the locus of Parents Involved, the state prosecuted and jailed a white seller for sedition after he sold his home in his white neighborhood to a black family. Everywhere, North, South, East, and West, police stood by while thousands (not an exaggeration) of mobs set fire to and stoned homes purchased by blacks in white neighborhoods, and prosecutors almost never (if ever) charged well-known and easily identifiable mob leaders. This officially sanctioned abuse of the police power also constituted de jure segregation. An example from Culver City, a suburb of Los Angeles, illustrates how purposeful state action to promote racial segregation could be. During World War II, the local state’s attorney instructed the municipality’s air raid wardens, when they went door-to-door advising residents to turn off their lights to avoid providing guidance to Japanese bombers, also to solicit homeowners to sign restrictive covenants barring blacks from residence in the community. This was de jure segregation. E C O N O M I C P O L I C Y I N S T I T U T E | M A R C H 6 , 2 0 1 4 PA G E 7 http://www.epi.org/ Other forms abound of racially explicit state action to segregate the urban landscape, in violation of the Fifth, Thir- teenth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Yet the term “de facto segregation,” describing a never-existent reality, persists among otherwise well-informed advocates and scholars. The term, and its implied theory of private causation, hobbles our motivation to address de jure segregation as explicitly as Jim Crow was addressed in the South or apartheid was addressed in South Africa. Private prejudice certainly played a very large role. But even here, unconstitutional government action not only reflected but helped to create and sustain private prejudice. In part, white homeowners’ resistance to black neighbors was fed by deteriorating ghetto conditions, so that white homeowners had a reasonable fear that if African Americans moved into their neighborhoods, these refugees from urban slums would bring the slum conditions with them. Yet these slum conditions were supported by state action, by overcrowding caused almost entirely by the refusal of the federal government to permit African Americans to expand their housing supply by moving to the suburbs, and by municipalities’ discriminatory denial of adequate public services. In the ghetto, garbage was collected less frequently, predominantly African American neighborhoods were re-zoned for mixed (i.e., industrial, or even toxic) use, streets remained unpaved, even water, power, and sewer services were less often provided. This was de jure segregation, but white homeowners came to see these conditions as characteristics of black residents themselves, not as the results of racially motivated municipal policy. iv. The Continuing Effects of State Sponsored Residential Segregation Even those who understand this dramatic history of de jure segregation may think that because these policies are those of the past there is no longer a public policy bar that prevents African Americans from moving to white neighborhoods. Thus, they say, although these policies were unfortunate, we no longer have de jure segregation. Rather, they believe, the reason we don’t have integration today is not because of government policy but because most African Americans cannot afford to live in middle class neighborhoods. This unaffordability was also created by federal, state, and local policy that prevented African Americans in the mid- twentieth century from accumulating the capital needed to invest in home ownership in middle-class neighborhoods, and then from benefiting from the equity appreciation that followed in the ensuing decades. Federal labor market and income policies were racially discriminatory until only a few decades ago. In consequence, most black families, who in the mid-twentieth century could have joined their white peers in the suburbs, can no longer afford to do so. E C O N O M I C P O L I C Y I N S T I T U T E | M A R C H 6 , 2 0 1 4 PA G E 8 http://www.epi.org/ The federal civil service was first segregated in the twentieth century, by the administration of President Woodrow Wilson. Under the rules then adopted, no black civil servant could be in a position of authority over white civil servants, and in consequence, African Americans were restricted and demoted to the most poorly paid jobs. The federal government recognized separate black and white government employee unions well into the second half of the twentieth century. For example, black letter carriers were not admitted to membership in the white postal service union. Black letter carriers had their own union, but the Postal Service would only hear grievances from the white organization. At the behest of Southern segregationist Senators and Congressmen, New Deal labor standards laws, like the National Labor Relations Act and the minimum wage law, excluded from coverage, for undisguised racial purposes, occupations in which black workers predominated. The National Labor Relations Board certified segregated private sector unions, and unions that entirely excluded African Americans from their trades, into the 1970s. State and local governments maintained separate, and lower, salary schedules for black public employees through the 1960s. In these and other ways, government played an important and direct role in depressing the income levels of African American workers below the income levels of comparable white workers. This, too, contributed to the inability of black workers to accumulate the wealth needed to move to equity-appreciating white suburbs. Segregation is now locked in place by exclusionary zoning laws in suburbs where black families once could have afforded to move in the absence of official segregation, but can afford to do so no longer with property values appreciated. Mid-twentieth century policies of de jure racial segregation continue to have impact in other ways, as well. A history of state-sponsored violence to keep African Americans in their ghettos cannot help but influence the present-day reluc- tance of many black families to integrate. Today, when facially race-neutral housing or redevelopment policies have a disparate impact on African Americans, that impact is inextricably intertwined with the state-sponsored system of residential segregation that we established. v. Miseducating Our Youth Reacquainting ourselves with that history is a step towards confronting it. When knowledge of that history becomes commonplace, we will conclude that Louisville, Seattle and other racially segregated metropolitan areas not only have permission, but a constitutional obligation to integrate. But this obligation cannot be fulfilled by school districts alone. In some small cities, and in some racial border areas, some racial school integration can be accomplished by adjusting attendance zones, establishing magnet schools, or offer- ing more parent-student choice. This is especially true – but only temporarily – where neighborhoods are in transition, either from gradual urban gentrification, or in first-ring suburbs to which urban ghetto populations are being displaced. These school integration policies are worth pursuing, but generally, our most distressed ghettos are too far distant from E C O N O M I C P O L I C Y I N S T I T U T E | M A R C H 6 , 2 0 1 4 PA G E 9 http://www.epi.org/ truly middle-class communities for school integration to occur without racially explicit policies of residential desegre- gation. Many ghettos are now so geographically isolated from white suburbs that voluntary choice, magnet schools, or fiddling with school attendance zones can no longer enable many low-income black children to attend predominantly middle class schools. Instead, narrowing the achievement gap will also require housing desegregation, which history also shows is not a vol- untary matter but constitutional necessity – involving policies like voiding exclusionary zoning, placing scattered low and moderate income housing in predominantly white suburbs, prohibiting landlord discrimination against housing voucher holders, and ending federal subsidies for communities that fail to reverse policies that led to racial exclusion. We will never develop the support needed to enact such policies if policymakers and the public are unaware of the his- tory of state-sponsored residential segregation. And we are not doing the job of telling young people this story, so that they will support more integration-friendly policies … Educational Researcher, Vol. 48 No. 7, pp. 407 –420 DOI: 10.3102/0013189X19860814 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions © 2019 AERA. http://er.aera.net OCTOBER 2019 407 Racially segregating students of color in certain schools—separated from White or middle-class peers—often cor-responds with unfair financing of schools, regressive allocation of quality teachers, and culturally limited curricula (e.g., Noguera, Pierce, & Ahram, 2015; Vasquez Heilig, Brown, & Brown, 2012). But little is known about whether the racial or economic segregation of young Latino children—as they enter kindergarten—is easing or growing worse. We do know that Latino children have enjoyed gains in early learning and social development during their preschool years since the 1990s (Bassok, Gibbs, & Latham, 2018; Reardon & Portilla, 2016). Yet the segregated settings that beset many Latino children as they enter school likely constrain this progress (Owens, 2018). An earlier generation of research detailed how Black children benefit from integrated schools (for review, see Cook, 1984). Yet little is known empirically about recent trends in levels of racial and economic segregation that confront Latino children at entry to elementary school. We contribute to the segregation literature by focusing on schools that young Latino children enter, matching universe data for the nation’s schools and districts with family and child-level data, 1998 to 2010. This allows us to (a) observe trends in the isolation of Latino children within certain schools in school districts nationwide, (b) disaggregate trends for children of immigrant and native-born parents, and (c) learn how school ver- sus neighborhood contexts are changing for Latino children. We also ask whether patterns of racial and economic segregation may move independently over time, as many Latino families spread across the nation, some enjoying upward mobility (Dondero & Muller, 2012; Reardon & Bischoff, 2011). Overall, we find intensifying segregation of Latino children from White peers among schools in districts that enroll at least 10% Latino pupils; this set against already high levels of racial isolation. Nor have the nation’s 10 districts serving the poorest concentrations of students shown discernible progress toward integrating Latino students among their constituent schools. Children from low-income families—regardless of race or Latino ethnicity—did increasingly attend school with middle-class peers over the 1998 to 2010 period. Our more textured child and family-level data verify that Latino kindergartners experienced declining exposure to White peers during the period. Those of foreign-born mothers entered 860814EDRXXX10.3102/0013189X19860814Educational ResearcherEducational Researcher research-article2019 1University of California, Berkeley, CA 2University of Maryland, College Park, MD 3University of California, Irvine, CA Worsening School Segregation for Latino Children? Bruce Fuller1, Yoonjeon Kim1 , Claudia Galindo2, Shruti Bathia1, Margaret Bridges1, Greg J. Duncan3, and Isabel García Valdivia1 A half century of research details how segregating racial groups in separate schools corresponds with disparities in funding and quality teachers and culturally narrow curricula. But we know little about whether young Latino children have entered less or more segregated elementary schools over the past generation. This article details the growing share of Latino children from low-income families populating schools, 1998 to 2010. Latinos became more segregated within districts enrolling at least 10% Latino pupils nationwide, including large urban districts. Exposure of poor students (of any race) to middle-class peers improved nationwide. This appears to stem in part from rising educational attainment of adults in economically integrated communities populated by Latinos. Children of native-born Latina mothers benefit more from economic integration than those of immigrant mothers, who remain isolated in separate schools. We discuss implications for local educators and policy makers and suggest future research to illuminate where and how certain districts have advanced integration. Keywords: early childhood; early learning; educational policy; equity; immigration/immigrants; Latino children; longitudinal studies; regression analyses; segregation FEATURE ARTICLES https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/journals-permissions http://er.aera.net https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X19860814 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.3102%2F0013189X19860814&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2019-07-29 408 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER even more sharply segregated schools, compared with Latino peers of native-born mothers. At the same time, Latino children more often resided in neighborhoods with higher educational attainment, and parents’ schooling predicted children’s entry to economically integrated schools. We discuss implications for local educators and policy mak- ers, then sketch future research priorities. Trends in neighborhood segregation condition school segregation and improved exposure to middle-class peers. But little is known on how education lead- ers and policy makers might advance gains at the community level for Latino children, progressively financing schools and fairly allocating high-quality teachers. This article does not revisit the consequences of deep-seated segregation on learning. We do unpack local variation in the school and neighborhood contexts of Latino children and how these settings are changing over time. Integrating Latino Children—Progress or Regress? Schools can act to ease or harden disparities experienced by chil- dren of Latino or low-income families. Yet as educators and policy makers attempt to buoy Latino children—seeking to advance their early growth and learning—little is known about whether they are entering less or more segregated schools and how trends may differ for the offspring of immigrant versus later-generation parents. The segregated facets of neighborhoods, especially housing patterns, contribute to the extent to which Latino children attend schools with White or middle-class peers. This article focuses on trends in school segregation, while also reporting on relevant features of neighborhoods in which Latino children are raised. Tracing school and residential segregation has become more complicated as many Latino families exit urban enclaves (partly fostered by rising educational attainment), bound for what demographers term new destinations—suburbs, exurbs, or rural areas—still mainly White in their demographic composition, often hosting schools that are ill-equipped to serve diversifying children and families. “Migration [within the United States] ostensibly permits resi- dents to overcome place-linked disadvantages,” as Tienda and Fuentes argue (2014, p. 505). But “Institutional barriers, eco- nomic conditions, and housing constraints limit the realization of social mobility.” And even when Latino parents search out materially better-off neighborhoods, their children may not enter more integrated schools. Housing patterns and local dis- trict policies (or inaction) may limit the likelihood of finding integrated schools. Overall, it is not clear whether school segregation for young Latino children is increasing or decreasing nationwide. Crosnoe (2005) found that Mexican-heritage children sorted into schools with greater concentrations of poor and non-White stu- dents relative to White peers, drawing on a nationally represen- tative sample. Orfield and Lee (2007) reported that 60% of all Latino students (K–12) attended high-poverty schools nation- wide (at least half in poverty), as did less than one-fifth of all White pupils (18%). Tracking student composition in 350 metro areas, Stroub and Richards (2013) found that after peaking in the late 1980s, mean levels of racial segregation among schools within districts had fallen modestly by 2009. They also found modest gains in the integration of Latino students across K–12, in part mirroring family movement to once predominantly White suburbs (con- sistent with Fiel, 2013; Iceland & Sharp, 2013). Racial integra- tion among non-White groups has improved modestly as well, but not necessarily across economic classes (Reardon & Owens, 2014). That is, the capacity of families to move into middle-class neighborhoods (independent of race or ethnicity) may condition the likelihood of selecting an integrated school. Turning to residential segregation, Iceland and Sharp (2013) found that the average Latino resident was less likely to see a White neighbor in 2010, compared with 1980, after examin- ing segregation among communities situated in 366 metro areas. We know that Latinos displayed slightly rising levels of residential segregation from Whites, 1970 to 2010, across 287 metro areas (Alba & Foner, 2015). And aging suburbs, although better-off economically compared with immigrant enclaves, remain quite segregated racially (Lichter, Parisi, Taquino, & Grice, 2010). A majority of Latinos by 2010 resided in suburban parts of metro areas for the first time nationwide, in part stemming from migration to new destinations in the Midwest and South (Hirschman & Massey, 2008). Fully one-third of Mexican immi- grants to the United States, between 1995 and 2000, settled into nontraditional states (Lichter et al., 2010). Many more left tradi- tional immigrant gateways, heading out to diversifying suburbs. These findings prompt the question of how residential segre- gation conditions the isolation of Latino children in certain schools. Both family selection and place-based factors appear to determine when segregation among schools diminishes or grows worse. As certain Latino families sort into new destinations, for instance, this alters the ethnic and economic mix of district enrollments. Better educated Latino parents may seek middle- class neighborhoods, while still enrolling their children in pre- dominantly Latino schools—achieving greater exposure to middling, but not necessarily White, peers (Reeves & Busette, 2018). Incumbent residents of neighborhoods also shape evolving lev- els of segregation via higher fertility rates among some groups, along with the out-migration of White families. Part of the “reseg- regation” of schools stems, not so much from school policy, but from higher birth rates among Latina mothers, relative to other groups residing in the same neighborhoods (Logan, 2004). Yet we still know little about whether young Latino children are entering schools in which exposure to White or middle-class peers is improving or diminishing and how these trends vary for the offspring of immigrant versus native-born Latino parents. Nor do we know whether children from low-income children (independent of their race or ethnicity) interact more or less with middle-class peers over time. This conditions the experience of Latino children from poor households. We examine these trends over the 1998 to 2010 period, an era that witnessed unstable policies toward English learners, resurging hostility toward immigrants, and recovery from the Great Recession. OCTOBER 2019 409 Mapping Segregation—Variation Across Geographies and Social Classes Children of Latino heritage, of course, make up a rising share of school enrollments across the nation. Over one-fifth of all kin- dergartners were of Latino heritage in 17 states by 2012 (Stepler & Lopez, 2016). As Latino parents radiate out from urban enclaves, some do settle in less segregated neighborhoods.1 This suggests that levels of residential integration may be improving in many neighborhoods, or at least variability grows wider, com- pared with old Latino enclaves in urban centers. This may condi- tion trends in school segregation. To illustrate local variation in residential segregation, Figure 1 displays the share of population, White, for Los Angeles census tracts in which at least one-fourth of all residents were Latino (based on kindergarteners in the federal Early Childhood Longitudinal Study [ECLS], 2010). We see a slight presence of White neighbors in predominantly Latino tracts downtown (near the “101” freeway label), with greater integration east and northwest of the central city. The L.A. pattern of geographic dispersal backs an optimistic theoretical position known as spatial assimilation, claiming that immigrant groups will assimilate into the middle class as they enjoy gains in education and job status over time (Alba, Kasinitz, & Waters, 2011). These advances by individuals accumulate, according to this account, to lift the economic status and racial integration of neighborhoods, increasingly populated by second- and third-generation descendants of immigrant settlers. This theoretical lens suggests that the isolation of low-status children in particular schools will ease as residential segregation lessens, as experienced with White European immigrants a cen- tury ago. But whether this allegedly natural drift toward assimi- lation will be enjoyed by contemporary Latino immigrants, especially when racialized and stigmatized in many communi- ties, remains unknown. Nor is it clear that Latinos entering racial or economically integrated neighborhoods will sort into integrated schools. Other scholars counter with place stratification theory, argu- ing that class and racial markers continue to leave Latinos in subordinate and isolated positions, even as they move to promis- ing economic destinations in which to raise children. “Economic mobility is no guarantee of residential integration,” as Lichter, Parisi, and Taquino (2015, p. 36) argue.2 This suggests that racialized markers will segregate Latinos into separate schools, even when the larger geographic unit (metro area or school dis- trict) is becoming more diverse. One troubling case occurs when immigrant Latinos move into new destinations, where incum- bent residents remain hostile or school districts are ill prepared, often assigning newcomers to highly segregated schools. This theoretical position highlights the pivotal role of educa- tion leaders, as they allocate Latino students and scarce resources FIGURE 1. Varying levels of Latino segregation for sampled Los Angeles census tracts, 2010. Source. U.S. Census Bureau (2011) and National Center for Education Statistics (2001). Cartography by GreenInfo Network, www.greeninfo.org. www.greeninfo.org 410 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER to particular schools. That is, racial status and local histories must be explicitly taken into account if school segregation is to be effectively addressed. And conscious school interventions are more likely to make a difference under this theoretical view- point: Levels of school segregation are not necessarily driven by residential or housing patterns alone. Ecological theory may further explain variation in levels of segregation observed among schools within districts. Urban ecologists take a broader look, studying how the movement of people, jobs, and housing between urban centers and suburbs comes to racially segment groups among differing schools.3 Patterns of residential segregation, housing prices, and the city’s racialized political economy all shape which families populate differently situated school districts (Reardon & Owens, 2014). Differential fertility rates for Latinas, tied to maternal educa- tion levels, then alter the complexion of districts and school attendance zones over time. Legal histories and district policies shape efforts to ease or sustain the segregation of non-White stu- dents in separate schools as well (Henig, Hula, Orr, & Pedescleaux, 2001). Whereas the urban ecology frame stems from older structural views of the city’s political economy, the school institution may act with some autonomy to ease the isola- tion of particular students in certain schools. The Latino case becomes more complicated by the wide vari- ation in the class position of this growing population, differing between the offspring of immigrant versus later-generation Latinos. Rising school attainment, for instance, spurs exit from urban enclaves and upward mobility for some Latino parents (Bean, Brown, & Bachmeier, 2015). We know that residential segregation is higher in locales host- ing greater shares of foreign-born, rather than native-born, Latinos (Iceland & Nelson, 2008). In contrast, native-born Latinos with children tend to live in higher-income areas and closer proximity to Whites (Fuller, Bein, Kim, & Rabe-Hesketh, 2015; South, Crowder, & Chavez, 2005).4 Markers of social class, especially the nativity of parents, may interact with neigh- borhood attributes to shape children’s attainment (Brazil, 2016; Owens, 2010). But it is unknown whether young Latino children have entered more or less racially segregated schools in recent decades. Recent findings show that American society overall is becoming more economically segregated, as affluent Americans increasingly reside in exclusive enclaves (Gibson-Davis & Percheski, 2018; Reardon & Bischoff, 2011). Yet for the wide middle class, we have little understanding of whether Latino children are gaining greater exposure to middle-class children (economically inte- grated schools) and how these trends may vary between immi- grant and later-generation Latino families. Contexts of School Reception As Latino families spread to new areas, little is known about the kinds of schools they enter. Dondero and Muller (2012) found fewer bilingual teachers and less access to advanced courses in new-destination schools, compared with schools in older Latino enclaves. Focusing on the 30 largest “new settlement areas,” Fry (2011) found that Latino students in K–12 enjoyed greater exposure to White and more affluent peers, compared with enclaves. Other work finds that “the traditional sites … of Latino growth – where the knowledge and resources to turn around the problem are potentially in greater abundance – are no longer the sites of greatest growth” (Gándara & Mordechay, 2017, p. 151). Place certainly matters for how schools receive immigrant and later-generation Latino children, manifest by teachers with varying cultural competence, those who speak Spanish or reach out to parents (Perreira, Fuligni & Potochnick, 2010). How dis- tricts allocate resources among schools often stems from segre- gated housing and schools, along with local educators’ varying commitment to racial or economic integration (Orfield & Lee, 2007; Vasquez Heilig, Khalifa, & Tillman, 2014). Such place-based policies can hold long-term consequences: Mexican American females raised in Texas, for instance, display lower school attainment and higher fertility, compared with peers in California (Van Hook, Bean, Bachmeier, & Tucker, 2014). And we know that Black-White achievement gaps are wider in highly segregated districts (Owens, 2017). Research Questions and Analytic Strategy In sum, evidence remains mixed on whether Latino students attend schools that offer rising or diminishing exposure to White or mid- dle-class peers. Nor do know whether children from poor house- holds (independent of race or Latino ethnicity) attend schools offering greater interaction with middle-class peers over time. Even less is known about segregation trends for young Latino children as they enter kindergarten, along with the differing experiences of immigrant and native-born offspring. And as diverse Latino fami- lies spread out to diverse suburbs and exurbs, have they benefited from more racially or economically integrated schools? This article informs these empirical gaps by asking whether Latino children’s exposure to White peers in elementary school increased or declined between 1998 and 2010. We also describe whether exposure of poor to nonpoor children (regardless of race or ethnicity) changed in districts enrolling significant shares of Latino pupils. We report standard measures of racial and eco- nomic segregation among schools within the nation’s school dis- tricts. Then, we draw on representative cohorts of individual kindergartners over the same period to replicate these patterns and, going deeper, to examine differences in school and neigh- borhood contexts. Racial segregation among schools within districts— RQ-1A: Did the racial segregation of Latino children within isolated elementary schools increase or decline in the nation’s school districts, 1998 to 2010? RQ-1B: Did the segregation of students of low-income fami- lies from middle-class peers regardless of race or ethnicity in isolated elementary schools (economic segregation) increase or decline, 1998 to 2010? Racial segregation for Latino kindergartners and subgroups and explaining variation— RQ-2A: Did the nation’s average Latino kindergartner enter an elementary school with rising or declining concentra- tions of Latino peers (racial segregation)? OCTOBER 2019 411 RQ-2B: Did the nation’s average Latino kindergartner enter an elementary school with rising or declining concentra- tions of peers from low-income families (economic segregation)? RQ-2C: Among Latino kindergartners from economically diverse families, what markers of social class predict higher or lower levels of racial segregation? Method Our analysis builds from two tandem data sets. First, we assem- bled enrollment data for all public elementary schools and dis- tricts nationwide, drawn from the Common Core of Data (CCD) in 1998 and 2010, compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2001).5 This allowed us to con- struct multiple measures of racial and economic segregation among schools within districts. Then, we replicated observed patterns for Latino kindergartners at school entry, along with disaggregating trends for subgroups of Latino children, drawing on nationally representative samples of kindergartners in the same years, 1998 and 2010, from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K; NCES, 2001).6 The CCD in 1998 includes enrollment data broken down by ethnicity and eligibility for free or reduced-price meals (FRPM) for a universe count of 50,529 elementary schools nationwide situated in 13,215 school districts. The corre- sponding counts in 2010 were 53,636 and 13,849, respectively. The ECLS-K data are drawn from national probability samples of 7,219 children in 1998 (nested in 442 districts) and 8,627 (in 419 districts) for 2010, after losing cases (a) with missing nativity data on the mother, (b) absent a match between school or family to the respective census tract, or (c) when all covari- ates necessary for regression estimates were not available for the final analysis (NCES, 2018; U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). We weighted all data using the sampling weights provided in the ECLS-K data set. Measures Latino children, families, and subgroups. The CCD reports enrollment counts of elementary school children identified by local education authorities as Latino. The ECLS-K data goes deeper, based on field interviews of the household respondent, usually the mother. Each self-identified as of Latino origin or another ethnic heritage and whether they were native or foreign- born. We only draw on data collected by field staff when the child was attending kindergarten. Subsequent interviews with mothers include questions about country of origin, but this information was not utilized in the present article.7 District and school-level segregation. Multiple indicators of segregation—the extent to which one group disproportionately resides in certain units (schools) situated within a larger geographic or institutional unit (districts)—are commonly used in the demog- raphy and immigration literatures (Reardon & Owens, 2014). We describe the conceptual justification for each measure. For each of the nation’s districts that host at least one elemen- tary school, we calculated the two-group interaction (exposure) index, interpretable as the probability that a randomly drawn Latino student shares a school with a White peer (Massey & Denton, 1988; Owens, 2017). This measure indicates the extent to which Latinos are exposed to Whites in elementary schools. This index ranges higher—indicating strong integration—when Latino students are evenly distributed among schools within the district, relative to the distribution of White peers. (The formula for calculating each index appears in the appendix.) Given that Latino children may attend schools populated by multiple ethnic groups, not limited to Whites, we also calculated entropy for each school, measuring the evenness of the represen- tation of two or more groups (i.e., Black and Asian-heritage chil- dren). Finally, we include the dissimilarity index (D), the absolute value of what percentage of White students would have to exit a school to reach parity with the Latino share. Shares of pupils enrolled who are Latino, White, or FRPM-eligible are reported. Analyses were conducted for all the nation’s elementary schools and host districts, then separately for districts enrolling at least 10% Latino children. We use the term “middle class” to describe kindergarteners whose family income exceeded the eligibility threshold for FRPM. Change in the percentage of students qualifying for FRPM does not always track against child poverty rates, one reason that we report the share of enrollment who are English learners, along with neighborhood attributes for sampled kindergartners drawn from the ECLS-K data (Hoffman, 2012; NCES, 2018).8 Neighborhoods. Given interest in how school segregation varies among types of neighborhoods, we matched each kindergartner to her or his census tract of residence. This allows us to report from the ECLS-K data median household income, poverty rates, and educational attainment of resident adults in 1998 and 2010, as key indicators of the child’s social context.9 We also determined whether the family resided in a new destination or traditional urban enclave, utilizing Tran and Valdez’s (2015) procedure. Markers of family social class. We report on attributes of kinder- gartners and households, focusing on markers of class that help to explain variation in segregation among schools. These factors include household income (adjusted to 2018 dollars); maternal education as dichotomous indicators of less than high school, diploma, some college, or bachelor’s degree or more; non-Eng- lish home language; and female-headed household or not. After reporting descriptive trends, 1998 to 2010, we estimate the extent to which the class position of Latino families contributes to the level of school segregation experienced by their kindergartner.10 Findings Shifting Segregation Levels for Latino Children (RQ1)? We first replicate earlier work showing that the nation’s schools serve rising shares of Latino pupils and students from low- income families regardless of race or ethnicity, over the 1998 to 2010 period. Latino students experienced declining exposure to 412 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER White peers over the period in districts with at least 10% Latino enrollment. At the same time, students from low-income house- holds (regardless of race) were more likely to attend school with a middle-class peer. We see in column 1 (Table 1) that Latino children’s expo- sure to White peers across all school districts remained con- stant on average (row A, index score, .61), 1998-2010; whereas the likelihood that poor children were exposed to middle-class peers increased markedly (.33 to .45, p < .001, about two- fifths SD). Turning to districts with enrollments at least 10% Latino (row B), we see the interaction exposure index declining from .50 to .47 (p < .001) by a small level of magnitude (.11 SD). We again see a rising likelihood of poor students being exposed to middle-class students among schools (regardless of race); the index rising from .31 to .38 (p < .001, .29 SD). Note that many more districts enrolled at least 10% Latino children in 2010 (4,277), compared with the count in 1998 (2,321). Trends did not appreciably change when comparing 1998 and 2010 levels only for the original 2,321 districts. This constant set of districts also displayed declining interaction between Latino and White children, along with improving inter- action between children of poor and those of middle-class fami- lies (again, regardless of race or ethnicity). The share of students enrolled, FRPM eligible, climbed from 38% to 61% over the period. This was partly due to liberalized eligibility for free and reduced-price meals at school. We calculated segregation indices for the nation’s 10 poorest districts (based on FRPM shares) enrolling more than 50,000 pupils and at least 10% Latino, as reported in row C.11 Overall, we see considerably lower Latino-White interaction scores, indi- cating more severe segregation of Latino children in separate schools, relative to national averages. Schools in these 10 districts enrolled increasing shares of Latino students, whereas the …