Redlining: How it Continues to Affect Education Today

by Kelly Edwards | Novel Hand | June 17, 2020

Segregated schooling supposedly ended in 1954

under the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme
Court decision that struck down the idea of
“separate but equal” in education and is what
most of us think of as the start to integration in
schools.

Unfortunately, that goal for education could not

be further from what is reflected in our school systems today. In 2020, “black children are
more racially and socioeconomically isolated” than at any point since data on this began
to be collected in 1970. One important factor in segregation in schools is housing, and
how the housing market was discriminatory throughout the 20th century. The impacts of
many of those policies, specifically redlining, allow this
segregation to persist today.

What is Redlining?

Last week, Alexa wrote a post on racially restrictive covenants

and how racially segregated communities have impacted the
current civil rights discourse in our country today. Redlining
also contributed to these racially segregated communities
across the country. Redlining is a practice where banks in the
United States would deny mortgages to people to prevent
them from buying a home in certain neighborhoods, based
mainly off of their race, even if they had the right credit score
to make them eligible for the loan.

This practice was enforced from various agents, the banks, real estate firms, other
mortgage lenders, and was even backed by the federal government which deemed it as
“best practices for responsible lending.” Maps were literally outlined with red to separate
wealthier neighborhoods that were more desirable to live in.
Does Redlining Still Exist Today?

Redlining began in the 1930s following the Great Depression to mitigate mortgage risks,
but today it is technically illegal. However, the effects it has had on the geography of
many cities are still felt and in some cases it is arguably still practiced.

Even without official policies in place, many redlined neighborhoods from the twentieth
century still reflect the way these cities look today. Concentrated in urban areas, these
areas have a higher concentration of minority residents, lower average household
incomes, and rents that are lower in objective cost but higher in percentage of renter’s
income.

Housing Policy is Education Policy

One of the most promising pathways to building a better life and future for oneself is
through education. A reflective indicator of education quality is housing policy, and the
opportunities and resources available at your neighborhood school.

In many cases, students attend schools they have been zoned to based off of the
neighborhood they live in and their zip code. School funding for public schools is most
commonly based on the property taxes from that community, which have significant
variations depending on the wealth of the neighborhood and surrounding community of
each school. Even with explicit policies to allocate additional resources to underfunded
areas, many states still have large disparities in the cost-per-student from neighborhood
to neighborhood. One example of this is in New Jersey, where schools in the 95th
percentile of per-student funding spend $13,709 per student whereas schools in the 5th
percentile spend $8,401 per student.

Even in areas where funding for students in lower income areas is highly supplemented,
these schools still lack support in a variety of other areas. Schools in lower income
neighborhoods are more likely to have higher rates of teacher turnover, less parent
involvement, lower quality facilities, and fewer extracurricular activities available to them.

In one study on Montgomery County in Maryland, researchers found that low-income

students who were randomly assigned to attend schools in wealthier neighborhoods
performed better on standardized tests than low-income students who attended
schools in low-income neighborhoods. This occurred with special attention and
resources devoted to these low-income schools to reduce class sizes and better fund
and support these students.

Why This Matters

Recent research and data has shown how racially and socioeconomically restrictive
housing policies cause inequitable education outcomes. Not only are these two related,
but housing policy can actually exacerbate outcomes for low-income students by not
giving them the resources they need to succeed educationally. In contrast, students in
wealthier neighborhoods benefit from a breadth of opportunities that allow them to
advance into higher education and qualifies them for better job opportunities and
greater personal economic growth.

Moving forward, it’s important to know that fixing a broken education system in this
country is not as simple as considering schools in isolation. It’s looking at the
communities they are a part of, and the segregated neighborhoods still present due to
outdated policies like redlining, that continue to impact our countries. Until we can
reconcile and rectify these factors, they will continue to impact educational outcomes
and disproportionately harm low-income students and students of color.

Reflection Prompt:

While redlining was outlawed with the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, the effect
of the practice has persisted to the present day. The consequences of the practice have
had a devastating impact on many communities across the country.

According to the article you just read, how has the practice of redlining impacted public
education today? What are some of the ways that redlining hurt communities and
negatively impacted the education options for those communities?

Write a paragraph (5-7 sentences) in response to the prompt.