Data Access and the Study of Educational Equity: Implications from a National School Boundary Data Collection Effort

This post is written by Sarah Asson, Annie Maselli, and Ruth Krebs Buck, graduate students at Penn State University and research assistants on the Longitudinal School Attendance Boundary Survey (LSABS). LSABS is led by Dr. Erica Frankenberg, Penn State Professor of Education and Demography at Penn State, and Dr. Christopher Fowler, Associate Professor of Geography…

With the potential for new federal funding for ECE, we need to critically analyze how current funding policies have built on decades of discrimination

This post is written by Karen Babbs Hollett, a former teacher, instructional leader, and director at a state department of education. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Penn State University where she studies racial equity in early care and education (ECE) policy. The pandemic has made clear how reliant our nation is on early…

#KnowBetterDoBetter, Part III: A conversation among White parents, advocates, & educators about school integration

Penn State’s Center for Education and Civil Rights (home of this blog) recently hosted a conversation between Genevieve Siegel-Hawley & Courtney Martin about their two fantastic books: Genevieve’s “A Single Garment” & Courtney’s “Learning in Public.” It was a great conversation- sort of like friends reconnecting over a meal and some drinks (full video here).…

(In)visibility in a new land

This post is written by Maraki Shimelis Kebede, an education researcher currently based in Montreal, Canada. Maraki received her Ph.D. from the Department of Education Policy Studies at Penn State University, where she studied the experiences  of  minoritized  and  immigrant  students  as well as  educational equity  in  international  development  efforts. Maraki also served as a…

#KnowBetterDoBetter: A conversation among White parents, advocates & educators about school integration

This guest post is written by Karen Babbs Hollett, a former teacher, instructional leader, and director at a state department of education. Karen is currently an advanced doctoral candidate in the Department of Education Policy Studies at Penn State University, where she studies issues of racial equity in early care and education (ECE) policy. Following…

Ending Modern Day School Segregation, Part 1

After long decades of silence or backsliding, state legislatures are newly beginning to think about policy solutions to contemporary school segregation. A bill in North Carolina, for example, would require public reporting on levels of segregation at each school, and my home state of Massachusetts is considering a bill that would establish a grant program…

New Research: Benefits for white students in integrated schools

This may seem obvious, but I’m stunned by it every time: white students are the most segregated group in American k-12 schools, by a lot. And, it’s basically been that way forever.  Here’s a chart from the “Harming Our Common Future” report, released by the UCLA Civil Rights Project and Penn State’s Center for Education…

Suburban Segregation: A tale of two rezonings

I’m excited to feature a post from Dian Mawene, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who recently published new research about a school rezoning effort in a diversifying Wisconsin suburb. Coauthored with Aydin Bal, the piece explores overlapping forms of segregation at the neighborhood, school district and school levels, all of which is…

Segregation, protest & a window for change: Model legislation from NCSD

A few weeks before Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, the National Coalition on School Diversity (NCSD) published a list of model state school integration policies. It was important then, but it takes on added significance in light of the protests that have followed Floyd’s murder, the heightened attention to racial justice and segregation, and repeated…

New Project & Data Request: Attendance zone boundary changes

A new project out of Penn State University – co-led by Erica Frankenberg (professor of education and director of the Center for Education and Civil Rights, home of this blog) and Chris Fowler (professor of geography) – aims to collect longitudinal data on school attendance zone boundaries from school districts across the country. The researchers…