How does Redlining Impact Today’s Schools?
To add to the discussion on how housing inequality impacts quality of education, a study was performed by Harvard PhD candidates Dylan Lukes and Christopher Cleveland examining how the history of redlining impacts schools today. The study spans 90 years of American housing and education policy. The authors see how redlining, or the exclusionary lending practices in the 1930s have influenced schools and districts today.
For context, there was a housing crisis in the mid 1920s followed by the Great Depression, annihilating the housing market. Redlining was a tactic used in the 1930s as a way to improve housing standards. The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) went around large urban areas assigning a grade to different neighborhoods. An “A” grade meant the neighborhood was safe, a “D” grade meant the neighborhood was hazardous. A big factor in what grade a neighborhood received was race and ethnicity. Neighborhoods with Black Americans and immigrants were more likely to receive a D grade. These grades were then used to determine credit worthiness and access to financing which meant that D grades made it more difficult to get financing for a home, so that owning a home became nearly impossible.
The results of the study found that total per pupil revenue was lower for districts in D neighborhoods than in A, B, and C neighborhoods, meaning that modern-day schools where the HOLC maps had been drawn still receive less funding. A closer look at the funding found that at the state and federal levels, the schools located in historically D neighborhoods received more funding than A, B, and C but because of the lack of local funding on average, the school still received less.
They also found the average math and ELA test scores were largely different compared to A versus D schools. This signifies that there is less educational opportunity in the schools located in the historically D neighborhoods.
To hear Lukes and Cleveland speak more about their study, you can listen to them on youtube.
