Jacqueline Nowicki’s Post

It wasn’t until I started working in education policy that it occurred to me to question, why did I grow up in a donut-shaped school district, with the city carved out separately from the county? 🤔It turns out that school district boundaries have a HUGE impact on school segregation, and thanks to a rotten Supreme Court decision 50 years ago, the federal power for addressing this is really limited. But, there’s plenty that states and school districts can do to change this! Check out my new piece, and take a look at how much school districts contribute to segregation in your community. https://lnkd.in/eeGJ4qSg

Public schools are more segregated today than they were a half century ago. A Supreme Court ruling, handed down 50 years ago this week, significantly limited federal efforts to desegregate schools. But we aren't doomed to accept segregated schools as our destiny. There is still a lot that states can and should do to reverse educational inequities and create a system where all students have the support they need to reach their full potential. Our partners Brown's Promise have a roadmap for states to follow 👇 https://lnkd.in/gUNHyaN5

An inspiring new study from the Progressive Policy Institute suggests we’re on the right track toward building a more equitable and effective school system for ALL St. Louis students. The authors share evidence that points to a growing charter system ultimately having a positive impact on not just their own students, but on students at regional district schools as well. The report points out how St. Louis and Kansas City charter schools have narrowed achievement gaps in the state. To learn more, check out the linked article by The 74 Media that explores these findings. The article contains a link to the full study if you want to dive even deeper. #ARisingTide #CharterSchools #StLouisSchools #StLouisEducation #EducationEcosystem #StudentGrowth #StudentAchievement

A study in AERA Open confirmed findings from previous research that increases in charter school enrollment increase within-district racial and economic segregation, and the effects of interdistrict choice on both within- and between-district segregation vary with the presence of charter schools. https://lnkd.in/emh86XVN

I'm excited to share a new New America – Education Policy Program brief, co-authored with my colleague Jordan Abbott, on segregation between school districts in the 21st century. Tomorrow marks the 70-year anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision striking down school segregation. But school integration efforts made only halting progress after the Brown ruling, and backsliding began in the late 1980s. Today, as the public school system sees both increasing diversity and declining enrollment, the patterns of segregation between school districts are shifting. If we're going to succeed at school integration, we need to target our efforts where students live and learn today. Read the brief for more: https://lnkd.in/gYqreiFt And check out the longer report upon which this builds: https://lnkd.in/gTRcY-Cb For those looking for a short version of the brief's key themes and findings: 📈The percentage of students of color in America's public schools has steadily increased. Even districts that saw overall population decline still saw increases in their numbers of students of color. ⛔ Even though the country's public school enrollees are now majority (53%) students of color, the average school district is still large-majority white (68%). So while the public-school system as a whole is diversifying, students of different races still often attend school in separate districts. 🧱 In fact, the average district border only became more segregating since 2000, marking a racial divide of 11 percentage points then and increasing steadily to14 percentage points in 2021. 🧭 America's most segregating borders have crept westward. In 2000, the 100 biggest racial divides between neighboring districts were all east of the Mississippi. There hasn't been a sea-change, but we do now see some of these borders in the Plains states, West, and Southwest. ⭕ In metro areas, we repeatedly see a pattern in which inner-ring suburbs are diversifying and outer-ring suburbs are remaining or becoming more white. As a result, city school districts are less racially segregated from their immediate suburban neighbors, but inner- and outer-ring suburbs are more segregated from each other than they used to be. Urban/suburban segregation hasn't vanished, but it has frequently moved one level outward. #segregation #integration #diversity #Brownat70 #publiceducation #publicschools #edequity

Introducing another insightful project from Zahava Stadler and Jordan Abbott at New America. This project sheds light on a significant milestone: the seventieth anniversary of the historic United States Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, celebrated in May 2024. Expanding upon The Crossing the Line report, authored by Zahava and Jordan, which meticulously identifies the 100 most racially segregating borders in the country for 2021. These borders delineate the greatest disparities in the percentage of students of color enrolled in the districts on either side. Moreover, the report delves into the historical context of these divides, examining how entrenched racist housing policies have perpetuated residential segregation and contributed to unequal property values. These inequities, in turn, result in disparate allocation of local property tax dollars for schools. Through rigorous analysis\ and compelling mapping visuals, Zahava and Jordan's project provides invaluable insights into the dynamics of school segregation in the United States over the past two decades. #Esri #StoryMaps #GIS #Visualizations #History #SpatialHistory

This is why I think it is wrong to disband the Department of Education...quoting..."But a new ProPublica analysis shows the extent to which private schools segregate students. We dug into decades of private and public school data kept by the U.S. Department of Education, including a survey of the nation’s private schools conducted every other year by its National Center for Education Statistics. Outside of academia, few people know about this data." end quote. One thing Government attempts to do, is create and preserve statistics. So when any Government agency is suddenly disbanded, who will be the gatekeeper of the prior stats the agency collected? https://lnkd.in/gDJfMSdc?

An excellent historical summary article on the 13 Milwaukee Public Schools that are slated to close. Two common themes with these schools: (1) Populations of children that aren't stable, meaning kids that aren't staying in the same school from year-to-year and (2) Overall declining enrollment, mirroring the surrounding neighborhoods population of kids.

Mississippi's new K-12 funding model: The Mississippi School Funding Formula, which went into effect on July 1, aims to better support low-income districts, potentially improving resources for Black students. However, some experts are skeptical about its impact. Will this formula introduced by Republican lawmakers bridge the gap for underserved students? My debut article for Word In Black: “Can This New Plan to Fund Schools Help Black Kids Nationwide?” dives into the potential implications of a similar school funding formula replicated nationwide. https://lnkd.in/eiFdSyCe Read more on wordinblack.com 📝 #EducationEquity #Mississippi #SchoolFunding #BlackStudents #WordInBlack