Racial segregation remains common in US schools, 70 years after federal legislation formally outlawing segregation by race. But previous research has demonstrated that integration can benefit students of all races and ethnicities. Students at integrated schools learn how to make connections with children from different backgrounds, developing empathy and mutual respect. Madison Landry and Nabeel Gillani explored whether merging schools could help integrate schools. One school could offer kindergarten through second grade for the current catchment areas of two elementary schools, while the remaining school could serve third through fifth graders for the same two catchment areas. This approach may be preferable to redistricting for some parents, because it does not break up groups of friends. The authors modeled the approach in elementary schools across 200 large school districts serving over 4.5 million students, finding that combining two or three schools could reduce racial/ethnic segregation by a median of 20% and up to 60% in some school districts. Driving commutes to school would rise by just 3.7 minutes, on average. Mergers could, however, reduce walkability. The utility of the approach depends on socio-geography. In Miami, where White students cluster by the water, there are few interfaces between racially dissimilar school catchment areas. However in Plano, Texas, pairing 36 schools into 18 clusters and creating one triplet could halve the amount of racial/ethnic segregation districtwide. The authors share their results with the public at mergers.schooldiversity.org, where the expected outcomes of elementary school mergers can be explored at the district level.
PNAS Nexus
Merging public elementary schools to reduce racial/ethnic segregation
4-Mar-2025
Editor Esteban Moro and authors Madison Landry and Nabeel Gillani are affiliated with Northeastern University. They have not collaborated on this or other studies. The authors declare no other competing interests.