Zoning Effects on Education

[Cassy Thompson]

   Zoning is used to control and organize public land. Goals of zoning include avoiding incompatible land uses, to achieve orderly and attractive land use, adequate transportation, property values, and to encourage business. Zoning, however, can be undesirable due to property owners being told what to do with their land. Zoning also has an effect on not only businesses and land owners, but zoning policies especially play a role within education.

   A lot of districts and policies are chosen according to socioeconomic status. This article discusses and analyzes studies made on this issue through analyzing test scores and zoning policies in light of lower-income and higher-income neighborhoods and school division. Jonathan Rothwell analyzed the mandatory assigning of students to certain districts and how where they were placed affected their test scores. It is most common to find that zoning policies that group lower-income families together also place and condemn them to lower-income schools. This often results in unequal opportunity in the school district and the students’ education. Contrary to this system, the effect of assigning lower-income students to higher-income neighborhoods is shown through test results. The idea to mandatorily assign students in certain socioeconomic groups to the respective school district may not always be the best option.

   The more expensive neighborhoods and housing are shown to have higher scoring schools in that area, according to the author of the “Housing Costs, Zoning, and Access to High-Scoring Schools” report. Studies show that when the low-income students were assigned to higher-income schools, they had higher test scores. By looking at the test scores in areas like North Carolina where they attempt to integrate socioeconomic groups rather than categorize them, you’ll notice the gap between low-income and high-income student test scores is smaller. This finding supports the idea that students perform better and are more successful in middle-class schools versus high-poverty schools. Inclusionary zoning policies, based off of this study, can be beneficial.

   I found this article rather interesting due to how it is relevant to our culture and the common perspective today. People so often view areas and school districts by their poverty level, and they allow socioeconomic status and social class to be the deciding factor behind decisions made in society. This often results in inequality, and, in regards to education, I feel like we should strive for equal opportunity in every possible way. The findings of this study through analyzing Raleigh, North Carolina’s zoning process is influential and relevant for improvement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/how-zoning-p...

[Joshua Perez]

I found this article to be very interesting on how it describes how zoning is used to decide where students go to school. I agree with you that it is relevant in our culture today.When i was working for a school district I did see that schools in more affluent areas did better than schools that were in the lower income areas of the district. I know you mentioned about test scores and I do know one thing its sad when a district uses test scores to place students in low performing schools based on the fact that the student did poorly on tests. I do think its something that does have to change so, every student can have an equal opportunity.