Assessing Segregation Under a New Generation of Controlled Choice Policies

Student assignment policies (SAPs) in K–12 schools can either reproduce or help ameliorate existing inequality. Some districts are trying to maintain voluntarily adopted integration policies despite the Supreme Court’s recent 2007 decision in Parents Involved, which prohibited most race-conscious school choice policies that were effective and popular ways of accomplishing integration. While alternative policies with minimal or no use of race are still permitted, it is unclear whether they will create diverse schools. This research examines the new generation of school choice policies post-Parents Involved to understand how they affect diversity in our multiracial yet increasingly race-neutral era. Analysis of the use of a new generalized, race-conscious SAP in Jefferson County (Kentucky) Public Schools suggests that their plan is largely able to maintain integrated schools, albeit with some increasing racial segregation; economic segregation patterns are mixed. Moreover, the controlled choice policy has lower segregation than simulated, non–integration focused policy alternatives.