Those findings emerge out of the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the Nation鈥檚 Report Card. Amid an otherwise-disastrous release of fourth- and eighth-grade scores last month, experts hailed the emergence of a new hierarchy of educational excellence that largely runs through the South.

There鈥檚 a catch, however: That revised national leaderboard is visible only after researchers account for the wide variety of student populations in each state. to the 2024 NAEP were produced by the left-leaning Urban Institute, which has long applied statistical controls to scores in an attempt to develop a more precise understanding of how well schools are teaching children. 

At the heart of the effort is an acknowledgment that student demographics are not evenly sorted across state borders. Black students live across the Deep South, while English language learners are to be found near the Mexican border. Perhaps most prominently, rates of child poverty below the Mason-Dixon line than above. Higher or lower concentrations of these student groups, which have all historically posted lower NAEP scores, can heavily sway states鈥� performance in ways that may not accurately represent the quality of their schools and teachers, said Matthew Chingos, Urban鈥檚 vice president for education. 

Adjusting for demographic traits produces 鈥渕ore of an apples-to-apples comparison鈥� between different parts of the country, he added.

鈥淚f you want to go to a random state, ask a fourth-grader a math question, and have the highest chance of them getting it right, you鈥檒l probably be fine going to the place with the most white, high-income kids,鈥� Chingos said. 鈥淏ut if you want to randomly place a kid in the state where he’ll learn the most, then this list is a better approximation of that.”

To reach that approximation, Chingos and co-author Kristin Blagg used NAEP鈥檚 national data to compare test takers in each state directly against those of the same age, gender, race, socioeconomic background, special education status, and English language learner designation. These calculations effectively simulate a world in which Hispanic students, for example, are as plentiful in Maine as in Arizona. 

The consequent shifts are surprising. 

In NAEP鈥檚 raw (statistically unweighted) scores for fourth-grade math, the one subject in which American students made significant gains over the last two years, the top 10 states were Massachusetts, Florida, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Utah, North Dakota, Minnesota, Texas, and New Jersey. But only four of those (Florida, Massachusetts, Texas, and Indiana) remained among the top 10 in Urban鈥檚 estimates. Strikingly, New Hampshire and North Dakota actually fell to the 11th- and 12th-worst in the country after controlling for demographics. 

Inter-state contrasts can be even more stark. New Jersey eighth graders earned an average reading score of 266 second-best in the U.S.), while their peers in Arkansas scored 255 (tied for tenth from the bottom). In Chingos and Blagg鈥檚 report, however, the two states are nearly identical.

Among all states, Urban measured Mississippi 鈥� which underwent a much-celebrated academic revival over the past decade 鈥� as receiving the highest adjusted scores in fourth- and eighth-grade math, as well as fourth-grade reading. It nearly grabbed the top spot in eighth-grade reading for good measure, finishing just behind Massachusetts, Louisiana, and Georgia. A (illustrated and by education advocate Marc Porter Magee) also placed Texas, Indiana, Florida, South Carolina, Illinois, and Kentucky among the top states after averaging all four age/subject combinations.

Carrie Conaway, a senior lecturer at Harvard who previously served as chief research officer at Massachusetts鈥檚 state education agency, said that both raw and adjusted scores provide an important lens on the true extent of learning. But when local leaders want to benchmark their results against other states鈥�, she added, Urban鈥檚 release is 鈥渢he only way to do it.鈥�

鈥淚t’s not that one measurement is better than the other, it’s that each question comes with a different set of assumptions and conclusions you could draw,鈥� Conaway said. 鈥淏ut I do think that more people are interested in the question of whose system is the best, independent of demographics.”

A matter of perspective

The unavoidable reality is that states must educate the students who actually enroll in their schools. No amount of empirical maneuvering will change those headline numbers.

Yet Urban鈥檚 alternative perspective undoubtedly reflects some authentic improvements in school outcomes. Not only did the adjusted scores for Louisiana rank second only to Mississippi, the state also saw some of the fastest-growing raw scores on the 2024 round of NAEP 鈥� including the only significant ascent in elementary literacy anywhere in the United States since 2019.

Those strides have accompanied the implementation of of reading instruction that was consciously modeled after strategies first adopted by Mississippi. But it is difficult to identify which factors led directly to better achievement, Chingos said, arguing that any theories about how learning gains were accomplished would have to allow for the fact that states 鈥渉ave done a whole bunch of things over a long period of time.鈥�

鈥淚n Florida, was it the , the , or something else? In Massachusetts, was it or the ? You seldom see a clean story like in Mississippi, where they did a big overhaul of reading instruction, and they saw reading scores go way up,” he said.

Some also question the importance of rankings themselves. Derek Briggs, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who specializes in student evaluation, said that he was more interested in examining the rise or fall of scores over time rather than states鈥� comparative positioning on a list. Adjustments like Urban鈥檚 have value as a way of delving into the results of a one-time exam, he continued, but they are ultimately less useful in the context of NAEP, which tracks each state鈥檚 performance going back to the 1970s.

鈥淚f the perspective you’re taking is to look at trends and change over time, then in some sense, it doesn’t matter that certain states begin in different positions,鈥� said Briggs. 鈥淵es, you can see that the states are in different spots in the original year, but what you really want to focus on is the change.鈥� 

Chingos conceded that top-down ordering is 鈥渁lways a little weird,鈥� particularly in the middle of the rankings, because changes of just a point or two in either direction can meaningfully alter how states perceive and present themselves. While he and his colleagues try to communicate the complex ways in which academic reality can be obscured by demographics, the response of state leaders is typically more predictable.

“The states that get adjusted up love this,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he states that get adjusted down ignore it.鈥�

鈥榃e take seriously our role as leaders鈥�

Few will have the option of ignoring the decline in student learning over the last decade, which worsened dramatically during the COVID era. According to a district-level study of the NAEP results conducted by researchers at Harvard and Stanford, just 6 percent of American students live in school districts where math and reading levels are higher than they were in 2019. And in areas with large numbers of minority and low-income students.

With the from Washington, states are attempting to launch an academic recovery that will accelerate growth for the kinds of student populations that feature prominently in the Urban Institute鈥檚 analysis. While their paths to improvement may not be easy to emulate, top-scoring states provide a model for stragglers. 

John White served as Louisiana鈥檚 superintendent of education between 2012 and 2020, when local schools 鈥� historically some of the lowest-performing in the country 鈥� . In an interview, he said he believed that states like Louisiana were able to reach disadvantaged student populations through assertive K鈥�12 oversight led by governors, legislatures and state education agencies. Many others embodied a more 鈥減assive鈥� approach that largely centered on dispensing resources to schools and districts, he argued.

鈥淚f you look at the states at the top of the Urban Institute list, you would have to say that it’s almost synonymous with those that have said, ‘We take seriously our role as leaders of classroom- and school-level change, and we don’t see ourselves just as rule makers and check writers,’鈥� White observed.

While significant differences exist among successful school systems, White said, the unifying element is usually a leadership class that willingly embraces its role as a guarantor of student success. Those responsibilities extend to the selection of high-quality curricula, the provision of teacher training in domains like the science of reading, and the maintenance of high standards and accountability for schools and teachers. 

In a recent essay, literacy advocate Karen Vaites Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama as beacons of reading growth for the rest of the country to follow. White agreed the region has gained momentum in recent years, adding that the 鈥済olden age鈥� of education reform was by Southern governors like Bill Clinton in Arkansas, Jim Hunt in North Carolina, and the Bush brothers in Texas and Florida. Along with strong state leadership, he said, particular features like unelected state superintendents and county-level school districts likely explain some of their progress. 

To policymakers in states that have struggled to boost student success, and particularly those whose NAEP scores fall after demographic adjustments, he recommended that the challenge be 鈥渢aken seriously.鈥�

鈥淚f you’re the state chief in a place like that, the question in front of you is how to use the tools you have to systematize a long-term approach to change,鈥� he concluded. 鈥淚 don’t see any evidence 鈥� and Massachusetts has proven so for decades 鈥� that you can’t systematize improvement over multiple years.鈥�

That鈥檚 one of the top-line findings from a from the Urban Institute, which sought to understand whether devoting resources to children鈥檚 health and social development yields greater benefits than devoting resources to their cognitive development; the study also looks at what aspects of a child鈥檚 cognitive development play relatively larger roles in their adult outcomes.聽

Researchers found that math scores have a significant predictive impact on earnings into adulthood. That finding holds true for children of all races and ethnicities 鈥� including for Hispanic children who consistently experience the largest gains 鈥� and for girls, who tend to see a higher earnings boost than boys. 

鈥淢ath scores seem to matter a good bit,鈥� says Gregory Acs, vice president for income and benefits at the Urban Institute and one of the lead authors of the policy paper. 鈥淓verything matters a little, but cognitive skills seem to matter a lot.鈥�

The findings, which replicate a longstanding correlation between math and adult success, come as school districts across the country consider ways to provide more effective math instruction, especially in the early elementary years, and build a stronger connection in the K-12 setting to local workforce needs.

Specifically, the analysis shows that improving math scores by 0.5 standard deviation for children up to age 12 is associated with larger increases on earnings by age 30 than other equivalent improvements. 

The impact also increases as children get older. For example, a half standard deviation increase in preschool math scores raises earnings by 2.5 percent, while a half standard deviation increase in middle childhood raises earnings by 3.5 percent. A 3.5 percent increase corresponds to about $1,200 a year in additional earnings for the average adult. Notably, girls see a greater increase in adulthood earnings from an improvement in math scores than boys 鈥� more than three-quarters of a percentage point at every life stage.

The same cannot be said for the earnings impact of improving reading scores, which actually diminishes as students get older, falling from 0.9 percent (about $300) to 0.5 percent (less than $200) from ages 5 to 11. Meanwhile, the impact of health and social relationships are consistent but modest as children get older. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not an enormous impact, but it鈥檚 an impact,鈥� Acs says. 鈥淲ould you pass up a 3 percent raise?鈥�

鈥淚t consistently shows that things you do early in life do ripple through,鈥� he continued. 鈥淎nd even when you might not see a clear causal pathway,鈥� he says, 鈥渋t鈥檚 a good framework for understanding how early life stuff matters.鈥�

The analysis bolsters previous research touting a correlation between math and earnings later in life and gives policymakers much to think over as they choose among interventions aimed at benefiting children in the short or long term, as well as when might be the most effective moment to unleash those targeted interventions. 

鈥淚t is useful to see what are the curricular options and where you can intervene in kids鈥� lives early on if you want to have a long term impact,鈥� Acs says. 鈥淎nd it does show that improvements in childhood and elementary school do matter and carry on into earnings.鈥�

For example, Acs says, it may be worth making bigger investments in math in later grades given that improvements in middle school have a more significant impact on earnings than in preschool. And for school leaders looking to make a dent in the earnings gap between men and women, it鈥檚 important to know that increasing math scores in childhood consistently raises the adult earnings of girls by a greater percentage than those of boys 鈥� even if in absolute dollar terms, increasing math scores raises boys鈥� earnings, too. 

In the wake of the recent 鈥渟cience of reading鈥� overhaul that shifted how educators teach students to read, policymakers are increasingly setting their gaze on math pedagogy. improved slowly between 1990 and 2013 and then plateaued, only to fall sharply during the pandemic. On average, students lost in math between 2019 and 2022. The most vulnerable students fell even further behind, exacerbating racial and socioeconomic inequities. 

Recovery has been stubborn and slow. Students recorded the largest drop ever in math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress last year, to their lowest levels in more than three decades.

鈥淲e always talk about this amazing predictive power of early mathematics,鈥� says DeAnn Huinker, professor of math instruction at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and director of the Center for Math and Science Education Research. 鈥淎nd I think we’ve taken math identity and agency away from kids, and just squashed the love that you find in 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds when they鈥檙e exploring numbers. Kids just really get turned off of mathematics, so I think we’re fighting that right now.鈥�

Education policy experts, lawmakers and business leaders agree that the nation needs to drive improvements in K-12 math to remain competitive in an increasingly technical global economy. On the most recent internationally benchmarked , known as the PISA, Americans scored lower than students from 36 other countries. And Defense Department officials are concerned about Americans鈥� contempt for math, warning that it has serious implications for national security, including .

Looking ahead, the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the number of jobs in so-called 鈥渕ath occupations鈥� is set to increase by 29% by 2031, or by roughly 30,000 jobs per year 鈥� a faster clip than for other occupations. 

Though the debate over how to correct course is ongoing, experts say that the way schools are currently teaching math doesn鈥檛 work very well; further complicating the problem is the fact that many teachers who seek out positions in early elementary grades 鈥� the important foundational math years 鈥� do so because they don鈥檛 like math. Teachers should move away from procedural learning that involves rote memorization, Huinker and others say, and focus instead on conceptual understanding, which helps students recognize underlying math relationships, and developing a positive math identity.

鈥淭he number one goal is to really get at this deeper understanding of mathematics,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e want kids to make sense of the mathematical ideas that they’re exploring and learning about. So not rote learning, not memorizing, not worksheets. We do a lot that still is perhaps bad practice in early mathematics.鈥�

Huinker says she hopes research like that from the Urban Institute鈥檚 analysis crystalizes for policymakers and school leaders the importance of getting math instruction right 鈥� especially in the early years.

鈥淥ne thing that鈥檚 starting to really be more acknowledged is the importance of early mathematics and its predictive power for the long term,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here’s so much emphasis on reading and literacy, which is super important, but it kind of always overshadows mathematics. The crux of all of this early childhood, elementary and middle math is ensuring that kids feel empowered with agency to make sense of mathematics, to question, to explore, to really think of themselves as confident in that.鈥� 

Now, as courts and politicians decide the future of the state鈥檚 school voucher program, a study released in December indicates that private school choice hasn鈥檛 had the damaging impact that many of its detractors claim. In fact, its author argues, racial segregation of students tended to decline in school districts where more students were eligible to receive vouchers from the state. 

The was commissioned by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a reform-friendly think tank with a special focus on research and advocacy in Ohio. Its arrival could help shape the debate over the effects of school vouchers and the course that the state鈥檚 ambitious choice agenda will take in 2023, though voucher critics may contest its findings on school funding.

Alleging that the public funding of private schools is unconstitutional, and that the current system 鈥渄iscriminates against minority students by increasing segregation in Ohio鈥檚 public schools,鈥� a coalition of school districts last year. A Columbus judge by the government to dismiss the case just a few weeks after the Fordham report was issued. At the same time, Republican lawmakers to massively expand the voucher program, known locally as EdChoice, to all of Ohio鈥檚 K鈥�12 students after stalled in December. 

Roughly 60,000 kids statewide receive EdChoice scholarships ($7,500 for high schoolers, $5,500 for younger children) to defray tuition costs at private schools, including religious institutions. That number over the last decade, leading supporters of public schools to complain that their enrollment, finances, and academic offerings have been harmed by the rapid movement of families and funding from districts.

But study author St茅phane Lavertu, a political scientist at Ohio State University, argued that his research didn鈥檛 support those claims. The report shows that vouchers鈥� effects on student achievement and per-pupil funding in public schools are ambiguous, but not obviously negative 鈥� and far from increasing racial segregation in affected schools, he argued, EdChoice seems to actively decrease it.

“What we can say with some level of certainty is that segregation did not go up in district schools,鈥� Lavertu said. 鈥淚n fact, we can say with some confidence that it went down. That’s the only finding where I would say that there’s a clear direction, and it’s down.”

Lavertu examined school- and district-level figures for 47 Ohio districts where students in at least one school were entitled to scholarships between the 2006鈥�07 and 2018鈥�19 academic years. While eligibility was eventually expanded to students from comparatively low-income families, the study focuses almost exclusively on the original eligibility threshold, which hinged on students attending a school designated by the state as underperforming. 

The availability of vouchers clearly impacted student headcounts: On average, a district with at least one EdChoice-eligible school experienced a decline of between 10 and 15 percent of its students over a little more than a decade. 

But those exits were disproportionately driven by non-white students, Lavertu found. Data from the Ohio Department of Education revealed that 56 percent of participants in EdChoice during the period under study were African American, Hispanic, American Indian, or Alaskan Native. Consequently, the average district that was exposed to EdChoice saw a 13 percent decline in its percentage of minority students; those departing students left for private schools with higher concentrations of white and Asian students, while the district schools they left became less racially isolated (falling from roughly 57 percent minority-enrolled to roughly 50 percent). 

Happily, academic outcomes also improved somewhat. Using Ohio鈥檚 鈥渄istrict performance index,鈥� a composite measure that includes the proficiency levels of students in all tested subjects and grades, Lavertu found that achievement climbed in the typical district with EdChoice-eligible schools. Those gains were reached from a startlingly low baseline, with average academic performance rising from the second percentile statewide (roughly the twelfth-lowest-performing district in Ohio) to the sixth percentile (roughly the 37th-lowest-performing district). 

Those findings were far less definitive than those for segregation, the study notes, because it can鈥檛 be known why the index ticked upward. The impetus might be improved teaching in public schools as a product of private school competition, but it could also stem from relatively lower-performing students being more likely to receive vouchers, changing the composition of the existing school system.

While the academic results were 鈥渧ery noisy,鈥� Lavertu said, the results make it hard to claim that the remaining public school students are worse-off academically than they would have been if vouchers didn鈥檛 exist.

Funding questions

The study鈥檚 most disputed assertions relate to the financial consequences of EdChoice, which are central to the arguments of its opponents. 

Because voucher funding originates with the state, school districts only lose that portion of K鈥�12 revenue when their students leave for private schools (according to , 42 percent of Ohio鈥檚 total K鈥�12 spending came from the state in Fiscal Year 2020, though the percentage allocated from Columbus to each district is determined through a complex formula). Local dollars, which are principally collected through property taxes, are not affected.

Once some families use their vouchers, that money is also spread over fewer public school students. In fact, per-pupil expenditures rose by 1.39 percent in districts exposed to EdChoice; operating expenditures (i.e., those unrelated to capital spending on things like land, buildings, and equipment) rose by 4.55 percent per-pupil. While those results aren鈥檛 big enough to be considered statistically significant, Lavertu argues in the study, they can effectively rule out the notion that tax-funded scholarships lead to declining spending on public school students.

Even if those calculations are accurate, however, voucher critics say that they ignore a disquieting reality: Some localities find themselves needing to raise their own property taxes in order to cover costs when students and state funding are gone. Their efforts to do so often fall short 鈥� the people of Parma, the state鈥檚 seventh-largest city, that were brought to the ballot 鈥� and even when they succeed, cash-strapped towns and cities are left reaching deeper into their own pockets to fund essential services.

Thomas Sutton, a professor of political science at the private Baldwin Wallace University, pointed to that has occurred since 2019, when the Ohio legislature lifted income thresholds for families to become eligible. Some districts have been left asking their residents to pay more for the same schools, often while attempting to cut costs by closing or consolidating buildings that cost the same to maintain no matter how many students are enrolled. 

鈥淭he amount of money those districts are using per-pupil hasn’t declined precipitously,鈥� Sutton said. 鈥淏ut the reason it hasn’t declined is because they’ve had to make it up through local taxation, not because there’s been no impact on the local district.鈥� Meanwhile, state spending on private schools .

Lavertu acknowledged that the immediate effects of losing students to programs like EdChoice could be 鈥渄ifficult to deal with.鈥� But he added that the influence of school choice could still be neutral, or even beneficial, over time 鈥� particularly when combined with necessary reforms to adjust for shrinking enrollment.

“When you’re losing students and losing revenue, but those fixed costs are there, you’ve got to make some really hard choices going forward. In the short term, that can be really, really painful,鈥� he observed. 鈥淲hat I’d say with the funding is that, in the long run, it doesn’t appear to have a negative financial impact.鈥�

The fiscal challenges facing Ohio鈥檚 schools could grow even more tangled with of HB 126, legislation that limits public challenges of property tax valuations. In recent decades, school districts have clawed back significant amounts of annual revenue by appealing to county boards when they believed that nearby properties 鈥� the 鈥� were undervalued. Under the new law, the avenues to such challenges are sharply curtailed. Local authorities have also struggled to that allow millions of dollars of tax revenue to go uncollected.

Matthew Chingos, vice president for education data and policy for the Urban Institute, has conducted several reviews of the effects of private school choice on phenomena . Much of the existing research, he noted, looked at small-bore programs that were intended only for poor children or those with disabilities. But with more and more states attempting to rapidly scale their voucher initiatives 鈥� Ohio could be next if Republican lawmakers are successful 鈥� there could be a need for 鈥渁 new generation of evidence鈥� to shed light on how a more muscular approach to choice helps or hurts traditional public school systems.

鈥淸Scaling up] increases the potential for these programs to make a difference for the better, but it also raises the risk that, if they have negative effects, they’ll be more widely felt,” Chingos said.

But if the family wants to move their child to better schools in the nearby Elwood, Union or Manhattan districts they would be hard-pressed to find housing in that price range.聽

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These invisible boundaries are what researchers at Bellwether Education Partners call 鈥渂order barriers鈥� 鈥� lines between districts that frequently keep low-income families out of higher-quality schools. The Chicago area, the authors write, has 45 such divisions, where families in low-income housing brush up against districts with more resources and better schools but few, if any, affordable rental units.聽

Bellwether explores these differences in 鈥淧riced Out of Public Schools,鈥� released last week that adds a new layer to our understanding of how closely housing and education are intertwined. Districts with out-of-reach rental prices spend, on average, at least $4,600 more per student 鈥� the result of higher property taxes. While states鈥� school finance formulas aim to equalize funding across districts, they don鈥檛 make up the gap.聽

鈥淎s we think about what we need to do moving forward, it鈥檚 not just an education solution alone,鈥� said Alex Spurrier, co-author of the report and a senior analyst at Bellwether Education Partners, an education think tank. States, he said, should consider multiple policy levers to address 鈥渨hat is a very thorny challenge.鈥�

The report comes as continue to rise and many low-income families , long delays for federal rental assistance funds and landlords who reject . When families relocate to more affordable housing, their children often must leave not only their schools, but their districts as well 鈥� especially in states like Texas, California and Illinois, where metro area maps are dotted with dozens of small school districts. The authors label the phenomenon 鈥渆ducational gerrymandering,鈥� the creation of smaller, exclusive districts that cater to higher-income, less racially diverse student populations. While the report recommends multiple approaches to address the disparities, experts note that altering district boundaries is politically risky: People with money are likely to vote against those who meddle too much.

鈥淧eople who have wealth are willing to use it to get high-quality schools.鈥� said Nat Malkus, a senior fellow and the deputy director of education policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. 鈥淭he rules of the game do produce some inequities.鈥澛�

Mergers and secessions

Some of those rules date back to nearly a century ago when the nation entered a movement that by 1970 had cut more than 100,000 districts down to less than 20,000. Now there are 13,000.

But district mergers tended to lack high-minded ambitions to create more racial or socioeconomically balanced schools. Rather, they were likely to be unions of districts with similar demographics, explained Tomas Monarrez, a research associate at the Urban Institute who has studied racial and ethnic segregation in schools.

Some of the starkest examples of drawing boundaries to benefit wealthier populations include recent efforts by some communities to break away from larger, often county-level, school districts. the 2017 report from EdBuild, noted 73 secessions since 2000, with another 55 either attempted or in progress.

Several have launched in the Northeast, but the Bellwether report also includes examples in the South. In Memphis, Tennessee, for example, communities within Shelby County split off into smaller districts in 2014 after the majority Black Memphis district dissolved and merged into the county district. In Alabama, there have been 10 successful attempts since 2000, with in the works.聽

鈥淎t the very least, we should be wary of those secession trends,鈥� Monarrez said. Mergers, however, can minimize disparities in access to quality schools if leaders pursue them with the goal of improving equity, he said.

Some states have created where multiple districts share tax revenue or allow students to transfer into schools across district lines as a way to reduce disparities. The Nebraska legislature created such a plan involving 11 Omaha-area districts. In Massachusetts, the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, encompassing Boston and the surrounding area, is another example.

But Malkus, at the American Enterprise Institute, cautioned that such options only tend to 鈥渘ibble around the margins.鈥� Daniel Thatcher, a senior fellow at the National Conference of State Legislatures, noted that open enrollment programs can make school funding disparities worse because the receiving district gets the state funding for those students.

School choice programs are another way to allow students to attend a school outside their neighborhood, the authors suggest. The results of that approach are mixed. that within a district, charters lead to a slight decrease in student diversity. But across a metro area, the presence of charters can create schools that are more racially mixed.

That鈥檚 what leaders in School District 49, adjacent to the Colorado Springs, Colorado, district have found. The district is considered 鈥渋naccessible鈥� to lower-income families because there鈥檚 not enough affordable housing to meet the demand, according to the Bellwether report. But more than a third of the district鈥檚 students come from outside the district for traditional, charter and online options, said Peter Hilts, the system鈥檚 chief education officer. Half of the Colorado Springs district鈥檚 students are nonwhite, compared to 43 percent in District 49.

鈥淭here鈥檚 no question that open, inclusive choice has made us a more diverse district,鈥� Hilts said. 鈥�If you genuinely want educational equity, you must believe in school choice, and if you truly advocate for inclusive choice, you must address other factors like transportation, affordable housing, and childcare options that can inhibit choice.鈥�

Housing affordability not only affects families wishing to move into a district, but also those who want to stay put. In Tacoma, Washington, low-income families are beginning to leave because of a lack of housing options, said Elliott Barnett, a senior planner for the city. Proximity to quality schools is a key element of , a project that recommends building additional types of housing in neighborhoods that were previously reserved for single-family homes.

鈥淲e know that where a person lives has a link to their access to opportunities that have a big impact on our lives such as education achievement, income, life expectancy and others.鈥� Barnett said. 鈥淓ven if kids can travel from elsewhere to a high-performing school outside their neighborhood, that is another burden to overcome.鈥澛�

Some states, like and , have recently passed legislation to increase the supply of affordable housing. While such efforts haven鈥檛 always taken school locations into account, Monarrez said that鈥檚 beginning to change. California governor Gavin Newsom mentioned the need for a wider array of housing options near schools as one goal of his state鈥檚 legislation.聽

The next step, Monarrez said, is for policymakers to reconsider district boundaries as well.

鈥淲e need to find out more about what would happen if we changed these lines,鈥� he said. 鈥淎 viable solution is drawing better lines.鈥�

Disclosure: Andy Rotherham co-founded Bellwether Education Partners. He sits on 蜜桃影视鈥檚 board of directors.