How Neighborhoods Affect Educational Opportunities and Outcomes

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

SES-1124004 Stefanie Deluca Johns Hopkins University Abstract How Neighborhoods Affect Educational Opportunities and Outcomes In America, housing choice is school choice. Where families live determines the quality of their children's educations. Most researchers and policy makers separate housing and education when they are inextricably linked. This connection has profound consequences for social inequality. Over 70% of minority children attend high poverty, mostly segregated schools, and their test scores lag far behind their white peers. Over half a century ago, mandated school desegregation plans were implemented to address such inequality. Recent Supreme Court decisions suggest that plans to integrate schools explicitly on the basis of race are a thing of the past. How else can such disparities in access to educational opportunities be remedied? One way to increase the chances that minority children will attend higher quality schools alongside more affluent peers is to give them a chance to live in the same communities. This study capitalizes on a unique housing assistance program to explore whether and how improvements in housing access translate into gains in educational opportunities for poor minority children. Through a class action housing desegregation lawsuit, over 3000 children relocated from Baltimore?s public housing communities into mostly white, non-poor neighborhoods across the metropolitan region from 2003-2011. Using a mixed methods approach, the study examines how a radical improvement in neighborhood opportunity affects access to better school opportunities, how families respond to the chance to relocate to these communities and school districts, and how their children adjust to attendance at their new schools. Using a quasi-experimental design, incorporating administrative data, Census data, school data, and GIS analyses, the study will measure the gains in educational access that come as a function of the housing policy; in-depth interviews will identify how families respond to the policy intervention, and how new schools and new communities affect opportunities to learn and other social and developmental outcomes. Interviews and observations with families and children will distinguish those who were able to successfully relocate and engage in their new neighborhoods and schools from the families who were unable to take advantage of the program. The structural barriers and mechanisms that could prevent the program from effectively improving neighborhood and school contexts for poor families will also be identified. This study aims to answer the following questions: Does increased housing opportunity provide access to high quality schools for low income minority children? How do children and youth confront and manage the transitions to higher quality schools? Which neighborhood and school mechanisms improve children's educational experiences and outcomes? Which family and child characteristics affect whether families participate in the program and move to better neighborhoods and schools? This study will advance our understanding of how segregation affects educational inequality, and inform education and housing policy. We can assess whether housing interventions can improve educational access for poor minority families who reside in largely segregated urban areas. We can begin to understand how poor parents approach neighborhood and school choice and identify how other programs, such as school choice voucher programs and the No Child Left Behind choice provisions, can work more effectively to provide students with access to high quality schools. Our mixed methods findings will show how selection processes work in the context of a changing opportunity structure. This allows us to understand how poor families perceive the role of policies in their lives, and what facilitates or prevents them from engaging in the increased opportunities provided by policies. The findings will also have relevance for national housing policy. As large scale public housing projects are demolished, most families receiving subsidized housing must search for housing in the private market. It is critical to understand how such changes affect the educational options and outcomes of low income families with children. Unlike the typical housing voucher program, this study will test the outcomes of housing program where families are given assistance to find units in the private rental market.