School segregation is driven in large part by market forces. If K-12 schools serving economically disadvantaged students offered a tangible benefit of their own — “bonus points” toward admission to institutions of higher education — it could attract a more economically and racially diverse group of families. The purpose of this site is to share the idea of these School Bonus Points and to encourage collaboration, seek funding, and stimulate thinking about additional opportunities for reducing K-12 segregation.
School demographics for 2,517 public K-12 schools in NJ are plotted here with economic disadvantage (percentage of students eligible for FRL)on the x-axis, and race (percentage of Black and Hispanic students) on the y-axis.
If economically disadvantaged K-12 schools offered "bonus points" toward higher education admissions, then increased economic and racial integration of these K-12 schools (and their neighborhoods) would be likely to follow.
In addition, implementing higher education admissions formula “bonus points” on a national scale would:
The spark for this project was a recorded town hall meeting included in a National Public Radio podcast (Hannah-Jones, 2015). During this meeting, parents of a mostly White middle-income school district objected to receiving students, many of whom were Black and low-income, from shuttered schools in another district.
One parent relayed how this action resulted in a prospective homebuyer ending negotiations on a local property, alluding to market forces that link “property values” to the race and socioeconomic status (SES) of students attending the local school. This occurs as peer characteristics, more than school quality, inform school preferences. Thus peer characteristics also influence neighborhood housing demand (e.g., Abdulkadiroglu, Pathak, Schellenberg & Walters, 2017; Renzulli & Evans, 2005; Rothstein, 2006).
This illustrates how market forces influence home values based on the student demographics of the zoned schools. It is clear that something counter to these current market forces is needed. This gave rise to the concept of School Bonus Points.
An Incentive to Integrate Schools