Policy solution: Integration within districts

**Ensure integration within districts and schools**

Get district leaders to do the right thing

Even if you draw perfect plot lines, you have to plant the right mix of seeds inside each plot to allow everything to thrive. The state’s responsibility to ensure students have access to well-resourced, integrated public schools does not end where district lines begin.

The state is ultimately responsible for the educational opportunities provided to each student, including the impact of decisions made by local district and school leaders. And, in some places, within-district segregation is a larger problem than between-district segregation.

What states can do

1. Require local and school leaders to have school assignment policies and budgets that ensure integration and resource equity. District leaders should also be compelled to demonstrate that any changes to school assignments advance equal educational opportunity.

2. Provide funding and technical assistance to support district and school leaders in the work. This includes investing in state education agencies to ensure they can provide robust leadership and guidance for districts.

The U.S. Department of Education’s National Comprehensive Center, Regional Centers Equity Assistance Centers (serving the South, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and Plains, and West) and Content Centers, returning soon, to include centers focusing on English learners and multilingualism; early school success; fiscal equity; and supporting the educator workforce.
In the course of providing technical assistance to districts, states should share examples such as Dallas's 50/50 Transformation Schools. In Dallas, Texas, “50/50 schools” draw students from a wide variety of neighborhoods within the district (as well as outside the district) to create a set of schools with diverse student populations. In each of these schools, 50 percent of students are economically disadvantaged and 50 percent are not. It uses two separate lotteries—one for families of students who are considered economically disadvantaged and one for those who are not—which ensures that regardless of how many upper- or middle class families apply, half of the seats are reserved for students living in poverty, and vice versa. This is a simple, transparent, and strategic approach to running an admissions lottery.