The three terms comprising the Obama and Trump presidencies provide an opportunity to understand the evolution of race-conscious education policy in an increasingly multiracial, unequal, and divided society. Through document review and interviews with civil rights lawyers, government officials, congressional staffers, and intermediary organization…

School attendance zone boundary (AZB) data remain relatively underdocumented and understudied within the field of education, despite their critical implications for educational (in)equity. AZBs shape student outcomes and residential sorting patterns both by determining the public schools a student is assigned to and by signaling neighborhood…

Sixty-five years after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, the federal and judicial role in school desegregation has declined. In a more difficult political and legal environment, it has fallen on school districts to develop and implement voluntary integration plans through diversity-minded student assignment…

Political boundaries have historically been used to both segregate and integrate populations by social characteristics. Researchers have investigated the concentration of poverty, yet less attention has been given to the concentration of affluence, despite growing income segregation of the affluent from middle and low-income households. While the…

Background/Context: On June 28, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in "Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District #1" (PICS) that school districts not currently under court order for racial desegregation could not, under most circumstances, use race as a criterion for assigning students to schools. Purpose: In this…

In this qualitative case study, we explore the political impulses behind suburban secession from the 2013 Memphis-Shelby County merger, the largest school district consolidation in recent history. Decades removed from the Civil Rights Movement, during a period of stark inequality, colorblind law and policymaking, and a diminished understanding of…

As the demographic make-up of public schools (and neighborhoods) shift and schools become increasingly segregated, the role of school boards becomes critically important in maintaining policies designed to remedy segregation and promote equal opportunity, policies which may challenge the status quo. Specifically, in school districts and…

Background: The demographic landscape in the United States has shifted dramatically since "Brown v. Board of Education," leading to more complex diversity in many school districts than the diversity contemplated nearly 60 years ago. Desegregation research has shown that countywide districts are better able to maintain diverse schools,…

Purpose: This article examines factors that affect school board policy making about student diversity within two southern urban-suburban school districts experiencing changing demographics: Jefferson County Public Schools and the Wake County Public School System. Both districts have a history of voluntary integration efforts, and research shows…

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Education distributed $2,500,000 via a competitive grant program, the Technical Assistance for Student Assignment Plans, to 11 school districts. The grants and their local effects provide an opportunity to examine the new politics of diversity in public education. Participants cited a wide range of conceptions of…

This article examines the federal and local political response to the "Parents Involved" decision. At the federal level, developments suggest a reaction to "Parents Involved" that, since President Obama has taken office, has been largely supportive of voluntary efforts to promote racial diversity. The administration has also…

Boundary lines have long served as a mechanism to divide people, determining the quality of available resources, and ultimately, educational opportunity. In recent years, new school district boundaries have proliferated as local communities attempt to secede from larger school districts. In this study of Memphis-Shelby County, Tennessee, we extend…

Suburbs across the US are experiencing dramatic demographic shifts, yet there is little research available on how suburban school districts are dealing with these changes. In this article, we examine the discourses surrounding race and demographic change in three suburban school districts that have been undergoing rapid demographic changes and…

The 2010 Census revealed the extent to which today's metropolitan areas are growing increasingly diverse. At the forefront of this change are schools. Yet, research on school context continues to rely upon a traditional, cross-sectional bifurcation that designates schools as either diverse or not. This classification may be especially inaccurate…

This manual was written to help guide education stakeholders--including parents, students, school board members, community activists, administrators, policymakers and attorneys--in their efforts to promote racial diversity and avoid racial isolation in suburban school systems. Critical information on the current legal, political and policy issues…