Racial Residential Segregation and School Choice

“School choice” proponents argue that offering parents public school options other than traditional neighborhood schools empowers them to secure an optimal school for their children. But choice does not remedy the core social problem: that racial residential segregation enables White parents to have a higher-quality choiceset of schools than their Black counterparts. In our study of the Cleveland, Ohio, Metropolitan Area, we find Black parents are more likely than White parents to live in neighborhoods where schools fail to meet state academic proficiency standards, motivating Black parents to pursue “choice” schools more often.