Drawing School Segregation: Racial and Ethnic Imbalances between American Public School Districts' Attendance Zones

The United States school system has been historically and infamously racially segregated. That is
due, in part, to school districts' enrollment and school assignment policies, which often rely upon
residential arrangements. In particular, districts tend to spatially divide their jurisdiction into a set
of geographic spaces called attendance zones (AZs) and assign all same-aged students who live
within a given AZ to attend school together. The present study uses geographic information
science (GIS) methods to develop a measure of the racial/ethnic segregation between American
public school districts’ AZs. It also uses hierarchical linear modeling to estimate temporal and
descriptive trends in inter-AZ segregation across the nation between six school years between
1999-2000 and 2015-2016. I find that racial/ethnic segregation between districts’ attendance
zones decreased between the 1999-2000 and 2009-10 school years. The magnitude of that
decrease is larger in districts with more attendance zones. Further, I find a lack of evidence to
suggest that inter-AZ segregation varies between districts actively under court-ordered
desegregation plans and those that were either released from or never under desegregation plans.
Through this analysis, I contribute to the field a longitudinal account of the way in which school
segregation has evolved since a few pivotal court rulings in the 1990s and 2000s compromised
the ways in which schools and school districts were able to go about facilitating racial
integration. I also lay bare the direct role districts, by way of school assignment policies, have in
destining racial/ethnic segregation in their schools.