School desegregation by redrawing district boundaries.

ABSTRACT: Schools in the United States remain heavily segregated by race and income. Previous work demonstrates districts can promote group diversity within their schools with policies like redrawing attendance zones. Yet, the promise of such policies in many areas is limited by the fact that most school segregation occurs between school districts, and not between schools in the same district. I adapt Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms from legislative redistricting to redraw school district boundaries that decrease segregation while maintaining desirable criteria like distance to school and using only existing school facilities. Focusing on New Jersey, where the segregation of Black and Hispanic students from White and Asian students is among the worst in the country, I demonstrate that redrawing

SUBMITTER: Simko T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11436629 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature