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TC's Wells and Ready: Housing Policies Maintain Segregation in America's Suburban Schools

TC's Amy Stuart Wells and Douglas Ready, writing in the Washington Post's Answer Sheet blog, recap their research on Nassau County, New York. Wells and Ready found that housing policies have encouraged minorities to move out of cities and into the suburbs, causing white residents to flee their suburban homes. This demographic shift -- as well as the fact that minority students now represent more than half of the public school enrollments nationwide -- served to establish and maintain segregated communities and schools. This is an important observation as the nation's public schools now enroll more minority students than white students.

Wells and Ready write that their research paper, Divided We Fall: The Story of Separate and Unequal Suburban Schools 60 Years after Brown v. Board of Education, "offers a reality check for anyone ignoring the changing racial demographics of our suburbs and the need to work toward sustainable, racially diverse suburban communities and schools.

"In suburbs across the country, we see this 21st Century version of 'white flight' leading to a declining tax base and too often increasing racial tension," Wells and Ready write in The Answer Sheet.

LINK: America’s suburban schools facing new pressures

Published Monday, Sep. 8, 2014
Amy Stuart Wells
Douglas Ready

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