This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Although public schools in Baltimore City are predominantly Black, the district is doing a better job of reducing segregation among its student body than suburban systems that are able to draw from more diverse populations, according to a new report from Johns Hopkins University. Black students in the Baltimore City Public Schools system, which has a 75% Black student body, tend to attend school with students who share their racial identity because Baltimore is a majority-Black city.
But the school system's process for allowing students to attend schools outside their neighborhoods appears to contribute to a more effective distribution of diversity when compared with more diverse suburban districts, the report from the 21st Century Cities Initiative states. School districts in counties near the city (Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, Howard and Queen Anne's) struggle with ongoing segregation among their student bodies because the residential populations they serve also remain highly segregated, according to the report. The study was commissioned by the Abell Foundation, a nonprofit that works to improve health, economic and educational outcomes in Baltimore City.
While suburban school districts could foster slightly more integration by altering attendance boundaries and allowing more public school choice policies, the most stubborn impediments—residential zoning and public transportation—are beyond the control of local school officials and require state and county government action, the report states. "Our primary conclusion is that the problem of school segregation in the Baltimore region is fundamentally a problem of regional housing segregation," the study states. "Successful interventions will require housing and transportation policies to work in concert to racially and economically integrate the region." "Baltimore City Public Schools are segregated.
That is, students—especially Black students—attend schools with classmates that share their racial identity. But that segregation comes about because the region is segregated," the report states. However, "City Schools do not tend to concentrate segregation more than already exists in Baltimore neighborhoods.
In fact, given the profound racial segregation in the region, City Schools are some of the least segregated once one accounts for the racial composition of school-aged children within districts." The report offers several potential policy solutions for reducing segregation: "Promoting new, mixed-income housing development within Baltimore City will create conditions conducive to greater racial and economic diversity," the report states. "Improving local and regional transportation may help foster more racially integrated housing patterns and, as a result, more integrated schools." "Adolescents suffer from long, unreliable and sometimes dangerous commutes to school," it continues. "These commutes limit the effectiveness of school choice policies to weaken the link between housing and school segregation." Report: An Analysis of School Segragation in Baltimore City BA art history, MA material culture.
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