8: Systemic Racial Disparities in Large Data on School District Finance and Housing: Three Empirical Illustrations

Data on US schools and the students they serve are plagued by persistent patterns of racial disparities. But standard models for evaluating those data and patterns within them, particularly for purposes of informing policy, often disregard the role of race. Instead, they focus on economic and political factors, many of which themselves are influenced by racial discrimination and segregation. This chapter provides empirical examples linking racial disparities in housing values, caused by a century or more of racially discriminatory housing polices, to current disparities in the adequacy of public school financing and resulting school quality. We assert that the importance of race is unavoidable in evaluating disparities of these types and in developing effective policy remedies to those disparities.