Do you favor or oppose each of the following proposals to reduce racial concentration or segregation in U.S. public schools?
Creating more regional magnet schools that offer specialized courses or curriculum
Redrawing school district boundaries to create more racially diverse school districts
79% Favor 18% Oppose
66% Favor 32% Oppose
60% Favor 38% Oppose
43% Favor 55% Oppose
Initiating policies to promote more low- income housing in suburbs and other higher-income areas
Requiring school districts to bus a certain percentage of students to a neighboring school district to make schools more racially diverse
Source: Gallup Poll, July 15-31, 2019
have recently spread to places like Malibu, California. It’s a consequence of school choice, Frankenberg argued, that splits a larger district in two under the auspices of addressing overcrowded schools. In actuality, she said it creates more racially segregated campuses. According to Gallup, 57 percent of Americans consid- er racial segregation to be a serious problem in public schools. But people of color and Democrats are more likely to agree than white people or Republican voters. More than two-thirds of black and Hispanic survey re- spondents said they consider racial segregation to be an issue, compared to half of white respondents. In addi- tion, three in four people who identify as Democrats are likely to say racial segregation is an issue, compared to three in 10 Republicans. Most Americans also believe schools are less segregat-
ed today than they were 20 years ago, the survey found, but whether or not that is true depends on the district. In 1999, Americans also favored allocating funding to improve neighborhood schools instead of using busing under court order. For instance, nearly half of current Denver Public Schools students attend racially segregated schools, which is a higher number than in the 1990s. Other districts, like Kent Public School in Seattle and the Hurst- Euless-Bedford Independent School District in Bedford, Texas, are highly rated for achieving diversity. While it would seem that homogenous neighborhoods
inevitably make homogenous schools, that’s not neces- sarily the case. “How districts are making decisions about where to build schools, how to assign students to schools and
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