vibrant neighborhoods, successful schools€¦ · neighborhood and investing in a house or...

The Urban Institute

Vibrant Neighborhoods, Successful SchoolsWhat the Federal Government Can Do to Foster BothMARGERY AUSTIN TURNER AND ALAN BERUBE

July 2009

Copyright © 2009.The Urban Institute.All rights reserved.Except for short quotes, no part of this report maybe reproduced or used in any form or by any means,electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,record-ing, or by information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the Urban Institute.

This paper arose from an informal roundtable held at the Department of Housing and Urban Developmentin March 2009 to identify opportunities to more effectively link federal housing and education initiatives.The authors appreciate the insights gained from all the roundtable participants, and particularly thank IngridGould Ellen of New York University’s Furman Center,Bruce Katz of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Pro-gram, Jill Khadduri and Heather Schwartz of Abt Associates, and Kris Siglin of Enterprise.They also grate-fully acknowledge support from the Urban Institute and the John D.and Catherine T.MacArthur Foundation,the Heinz Endowments, the George Gund Foundation,and the Metropolitan Leadership Council, all of whichprovide general support for the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program.

The Urban Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research and educational organization that examinesthe social, economic,and governance problems facing the nation.The views expressed are those of the authorsand should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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Low-Income Children Benefit from the Resources and Learning Environment Available at Schools That Also Serve Middle- and Higher-Income Families 1

Even in Settings Where Most Students Are Poor, Schools Can Succeed with the Right Resources and Accountability 4

Kids Perform Better in School If They Don’t Change Schools Frequently,and Schools Perform Better When They Have Lower Turnover 7

Kids Do Better in School When They Are Healthy,Well-Nourished,and Arrive at School Ready to Learn 9

Conclusion 12

Notes 15

References 17

Contents

Vibrant Neighborhoods, Successful Schools 1

EVERY PARENT RECOGNIZES THE IN-extricable connections between where we live andthe quality of our children’s education. In fact, formany families, the composition and quality of localpublic schools are primary factors in choosing aneighborhood and investing in a house or apartment.Families who can afford to choose where to live avoidcommunities where schools perform poorly, therebyfueling higher rents and property values in commu-nities with highly regarded schools. In turn, localproperty values determine how much a jurisdictioncan spend on teachers and school facilities. And as a consequence, schools in communities where low-cost housing is clustered often suffer from insuffi-cient funding, obsolete facilities, and overextendedteachers struggling to serve concentrations of needystudents.

Public policies have helped shape today’s dispari-ties in neighborhood affordability and school quality,although programs focused on affordable housingrarely take public schools into account and schoolofficials typically assume that they have no influenceover housing patterns. But policymakers can do better. By strategically addressing the connectionsbetween schools and housing, they can trigger posi-tive feedback that enhances neighborhood vitality,improves school quality, and promotes equity andopportunity for families and their children. Most ofthese policies will be local, but the federal govern-ment has a role to play: deploying its considerableresources and leadership to encourage and supportlocal innovation.

This paper focuses on four principles regarding thevitality and performance of schools and communities,

discussing opportunities for constructive policy inter-ventions, summarizing what we know about theirlikely effectiveness, and recommending next steps forthe Department of Housing and Urban Development(HUD) and the Department of Education (DoED).

1. Low-income children benefit from the resourcesand learning environment available at schools thatalso serve middle- and higher-income families.

2. Even in settings where most students are poor,schools can succeed with the right resources andaccountability.

3. Kids perform better in school if they don’t changeschools frequently, and schools perform betterwhen they have lower turnover.

4. Kids do better in school when they are healthy,well-nourished, and arrive at school ready tolearn.

Low-Income Children Benefit from the Resources and LearningEnvironment Available at SchoolsThat Also Serve Middle- andHigher-Income Families

All children have the potential to learn and succeed inschool, even if their families are poor or their parentsare poorly educated. However, the challenges ofteaching and learning grow when many children in aclassroom are poor, with parents who are poorly edu-cated and struggling to find and keep jobs (Rothstein2004). Research shows that (other things being equal)low-income children do better when they attendschools with middle- and upper-income children

Vibrant Neighborhoods, Successful Schools

2 V I B R A N T N E I G H B O R H O O D S , S U C C E S S F U L S C H O O L S

than when they attend schools where most of theirclassmates are poor.1 School resources, parent expec-tations, and student readiness all contribute to thelearning environment in “middle class” schools.

Understanding Today’s Challenges

In many communities, housing patterns concen-trate low-income families spatially and interact withschool boundaries and assignment policies so someschools serve student populations that are largelypoor while others exclusively serve middle- andupper-income students.2 Lower-cost housing optionsare disproportionately located in central cities. Andwithin cities, affordable housing is often clustered ina few neighborhoods. Historically, federally sub-sidized housing has reinforced these patterns, con-tributing to the spatial concentration of poor families(especially the minority poor) and to high rates ofstudent poverty in neighborhood schools (Katz andTurner 2008).

High rates of student poverty, residential insta-bility, neighborhood crime and distress, aging facil-ities, and limited fiscal capacity all undermine theperformance of public schools in poor neighbor-hoods.3 And the poor performance of these schoolsdiscourages middle- and upper-income families fromliving in low-income communities. Young familiesoften move away from central-city neighborhoodswhen their kids reach school age, and neighbor-hoods with poorly performing schools have diffi-culty attracting families who have other choicesabout where to live (Bayer, Ferreira, and McMillan2004). Thus, school performance reinforces and per-petuates residential patterns, fueling a vicious cycleof poverty concentration, racial segregation, andneighborhood distress.

The flip side of this problem is the scarcity ofaffordable housing in neighborhoods served by high-performing schools. Zoning and land use regulationsrestrict the production of lower-cost and subsidizedhousing in many suburban jurisdictions (Katz andTurner 2008). Great schools fuel demand for homesin these communities, pushing prices and rents upeven further (Kane, Staiger, and Samms 2003). Andthe high property values that result yield ample tax revenues to fund teacher salaries, supplementalprograms, building maintenance, and new schoolconstruction.

Opportunities for Constructive Policymaking

Local policymakers and practitioners have a numberof tools at their disposal to give low-income childrenaccess to schools that also serve middle- and upper-income students. They can coordinate investments inhousing and school improvements to promote moreincome mixing in poor neighborhoods. They canexpand affordable housing options in nonpoorneighborhoods with good schools. And they canhelp low-income students living in distressed neigh-borhoods attend high-performing schools elsewhere.All three of these strategies have been tested on a lim-ited scale and appear to offer promise.

Coordinate investments in housing andschool improvements to promote income mix-ing. In a handful of cities, local stakeholders havecreated successful elementary schools in conjunctionwith the redevelopment of severely distressed publichousing and the introduction of new homes andapartments pegged to higher income levels. Promi-nent examples include a new public school sponsoredby Georgia Tech and a charter school sponsored bya neighborhood-based foundation in public housingredevelopment projects in Atlanta; a reconstitutedpublic school sponsored by a major developer in conjunction with public housing redevelopment in St. Louis; and a public school sponsored by the Uni-versity of Pennsylvania in the distressed neighborhoodadjacent to its campus (Khadduri et al. 2003).

These and other examples demonstrate that it ispossible to create effective, mixed-income schools inpreviously poor neighborhoods, attract nonpoor fam-ilies, and improve school quality for the neediest chil-dren. But there is no single strategy for success: localinitiatives must be tailored to address neighborhoodneeds, housing market conditions, and institutionalrealities. Key ingredients include installing new schoolleadership and staff, offering high-quality content(including attractive magnet programs and evidence-based curricula), engaging parents, attracting nonpoorfamilies with children4 to live in the neighborhood andattend school there, and ensuring that the needs ofpoor children (including those who lived in theneighborhood before) are effectively met (Khadduri,Schwartz, and Turnham 2007, 2008a; Abravanel,Smith, and Cove 2007; Orfield and Gumus-Dawes2008).


The federal government can and should activelyencourage local efforts to link housing and neigh-borhood revitalization investments with investmentsin school quality. Specifically:

� When HUD awards funding for the redevelop-ment of federally subsidized housing develop-ments, it should give priority to proposals thatinclude actionable plans for improving the schoolsthat children living in these developmentsattend. The commitment of local school officialsto the implementation of these plans should becarefully assessed as a factor in the selection process.

� When DoED awards funding for improvementsin school facilities, it should give priority toschool districts that are actively involved in proj-ects linking mixed-income housing redevelop-ment with school improvements.

� HUD and DoED should jointly plan and providetechnical assistance to local housing and school offi-cials engaged in federally funded projects linkinghousing redevelopment with school improve-ments. This technical assistance should draw uponevidence from research to date.

� HUD and DoED should launch a rigorous demon-stration initiative in which they jointly select andfund local initiatives in low-income neighbor-hoods with high concentrations of federally sub-sidized housing and poor-performing public ele-mentary schools. This initiative would be explicitlydesigned to attract middle- and upper-income fam-ilies with children to the target neighborhood andits elementary school, improve school outcomes forall children living in the target neighborhood, andpreserve housing affordability for the neighbor-hood’s original residents.

Expand affordable housing options in non-poor neighborhoods. Housing policy offers a num-ber of tools for expanding the availability of housingaffordable to low-income families in nonpoor com-munities. Federally funded housing vouchers providean ideal mechanism, by allowing low-income fami-lies to rent homes and apartments of their choiceand supplementing what they can afford to spend.Housing voucher recipients are much less likelythan public housing families to live in high-povertyneighborhoods, and when vouchers are accompaniedby effective housing search assistance and counseling,they allow very low income families to move to low-

poverty neighborhoods. To date, however, voucherprograms have not focused explicitly on the quality ofschools serving the neighborhoods where recipientslive, and evidence from the Moving to Opportunity(MTO) demonstration indicates that low-incomechildren moving to low-poverty neighborhoods do not necessarily gain access to a high-performingschool or experience improved educational outcomes(Turner and Briggs 2008).5

Further, in many communities with high-performing schools, moderately priced rental hous-ing (where voucher recipients could locate) is inshort supply. Therefore, expanding access to thesecommunities requires that local agencies build orbuy housing units that can be made available to low-and moderate-income families. Unfortunately, build-ing (or even buying) affordable housing in nonpoorneighborhoods often generates community opposi-tion, fueled by prejudice and by fears about crime anddeclining property values. Rigorous research evi-dence indicates that these fears are misplaced; whenaffordable housing is widely scattered and properlymanaged, it has no adverse effects on otherwisehealthy neighborhoods (Galster et al. 2003). Mass-achusetts has directly addressed some communityconcerns about affordable housing by providing sup-plemental funding to school districts to offset thecosts of additional students generated by new rentalhousing construction (Rollins 2006).

Montgomery County, Maryland, is a leadingexample of a suburban jurisdiction that has system-atically and successfully invested in affordable hous-ing that is integrated into affluent neighborhoodsthroughout the county. For more than 30 years, thecounty has required that all new housing develop-ments of more than 20 units include a modest share(12 to 15 percent) of moderately priced units andhas given its local housing authority the right topurchase some of these units and operate them aspublic housing. Over 40 years, this inclusionary zon-ing program has produced about 12,500 units ofmoderate-cost for-sale and rental housing in thecounty’s affluent subdivisions, of which 700 arescattered-site public housing apartments rented tovery low income families.6

The federal government should create strongincentives for local jurisdictions to expand affordablehousing opportunities in nonpoor communities, andit should more explicitly target these incentives to


communities served by high-performing schools withvery low rates of poverty. Specifically:

� HUD should strengthen incentives for local hous-ing agencies to help Housing Choice Voucherrecipients move to neighborhoods served by high-performing public schools. A first step would be toassist local housing agencies in identifying suchneighborhoods throughout their metropolitanareas and require them to report on the numberand share of voucher recipients locating in theseneighborhoods.

� More broadly, through public housing replace-ment, the HOME and Community Develop-ment Block Grants (CDBG) programs, and newinitiatives, HUD should strengthen incentives forlocalities to expand affordable housing optionsin low-poverty communities served by high-performing schools.

� When HUD allocates funding to renovate and preserve public housing developments or privatelyowned subsidized developments, it should givepriority to projects located in neighborhoodsserved by high-performing public schools.

� HUD should publicize successful examples ofinclusionary zoning and dispersed affordable hous-ing development and provide models for state andlocal legislation and program design.

� DoED and HUD should launch a demonstrationinitiative that targets failing elementary schoolsand provides housing vouchers to eligible familiesof children attending these schools on the condi-tion that they move to neighborhoods served byhigh-performing schools (and enroll their childrenin these schools).

Enable children living in distressed neigh-borhoods to attend high-quality schools else-where. A third strategy for breaking the stubbornlink between distressed neighborhoods and failingschools is to enable low-income children to attendhigh-performing public schools even if their familiescannot afford housing in the neighborhoods wherethese schools are located. Magnet schools, charterschools, and public school choice policies all providemechanisms for families to send their children toschools outside their neighborhood enrollment areas.Research on school enrollment patterns in the Dis-trict of Columbia indicates that elementary school-age children who travel relatively long distances from

home attend schools with slightly higher test scoresthan those who remain close to home, but data arenot yet available to determine whether these childrenachieve greater educational success (Turner et al.2006). For example, research on Chicago publicschool choice lotteries finds limited impacts onachievement for poor kids who won the opportunityto attend magnet high schools (Temkin 2005).

The federal government should encourage localinformation gathering and experimentation on strate-gies for helping poor children attend high-performingschools. Specifically:

� DoED should provide resources and protocols tolocal data intermediaries to supplement existinginformation in mandated school “report cards”with other indicators of quality for all public (tra-ditional and charter) schools, including “valueadded” measures.

� DoED should publicize successful examples oflocal enrollment policies that enable (and encour-age) low-income families to send their childrento high-performing schools.

Even in Settings Where Most Students Are Poor, Schools Can Succeed with the RightResources and Accountability

Although concentrated poverty creates serious chal-lenges for teaching and learning, school systems mustnot give up on the schools that serve poor neigh-borhoods. Examples of individual high-performingschools demonstrate that it is possible to providequality education even when many students are poorand the surrounding neighborhood is distressed. Keycontributors to success include the quality of theteaching staff and autonomy and accountability forthe school principal.


As discussed above, a significant body of researchevidence points to the positive impacts of attendingmixed-income schools on low-income student per-formance. Thus, affordable housing and school choicepolicies should, wherever possible, enhance optionsfor students from poor households to attend mixed-income schools. In the near term, however, many


low-income children will continue to live in high-poverty neighborhoods and to attend schools that pri-marily serve poor children. The limited supply ofmixed-income schools in some cities constrains effortsto help low-income children access such schools,even when they move to better neighborhoods ( Jacob2004). In districts where mixed-income schools doexist, they may lie at a significant distance from low-income communities, imposing travel burdens onyounger students from those neighborhoods. In addi-tion, the deep poverty exhibited by many areas withconcentrations of subsidized housing diminishes thenear-term prospects that housing or school redevel-opment efforts will produce a truly mixed-incomestudent body.

Therefore, policymakers should also consider targeted interventions to improve existing schooloptions in high-poverty neighborhoods, includingthose with concentrations of subsidized housing.The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act,which requires restructuring when schools fail tomeet adequate yearly progress goals for five consec-utive years, creates growing urgency for effectivestrategies. A disproportionate number of schools inrestructuring is located in urban school districts andserves poor and minority students (GovernmentAccountability Office [GAO] 2007).

One central challenge for schools in poor neigh-borhoods is attracting and retaining good teachers.The preponderance of recent research strongly sug-gests that the quality of classroom instruction is themost important in-school factor for explaining stu-dent achievement levels (Gordon, Kane, and Staiger2006). However, schools with high concentrations ofpoor and minority students are disproportionatelystaffed by teachers who are inexperienced and uncer-tified, teaching subjects they have not been preparedto teach (Clotfelter et al. 2007). Attracting and retain-ing highly effective teachers at schools serving high-poverty neighborhoods can be very challenging.High rates of student mobility and absenteeism, stu-dent behavior problems, and the added social welfareroles that teachers and administrators often assume atthese schools discourage teachers and principals( Jacob 2007; Lupton 2004). The combination ofteachers’ preference for proximity to home, goodworking conditions, and high-performing schoolsleads to the greatest turnover of teaching staff in theschools that can least afford it.


Despite the undeniable challenges, local school sys-tems can improve the quality of schools that currentlyserve low-income communities while they work topromote greater income-mixing in both neighbor-hoods and schools.7 Key priorities include attractingand retaining high-quality teachers and principals andestablishing new schools where staff enjoy the inde-pendence necessary to innovate but are held account-able for the results. Federal policy can and shouldencourage and support local jurisdictions to makethese targeted investments, monitor their effective-ness, and build on models of success.

Attract and retain high-quality personnel.Existing federal programs recognize the importanceof staffing high-poverty schools with highly moti-vated, highly effective teachers who can help closethe achievement gap between low-income minor-ity students and their counterparts from higher-income families and districts. The Department ofEducation’s Teacher Incentive Fund supports stateand local programs for performance-based compen-sation systems for teachers and principals, especiallythose in high-need schools. The Fund has supportedhundreds of collaborations between school districtsand nonprofit organizations that provide trainingand professional development for personnel at high-poverty schools and that increase the pipeline of tal-ented individuals seeking to work in those settings.

For example, in Guilford County, North Carolina(home to the cities of Greensboro and Winston-Salem), the Fund supported the development of anincentive pay program designed to attract and retainhighly qualified personnel in schools with above-average levels of student poverty, high rates of teacherturnover, and below-average levels of student perfor-mance (Rowland 2008). An initial evaluation foundthat schools where the program was implementedexperienced reductions in teacher and principalturnover, increases in classes taught by highly quali-fied teachers, and better student performance on stateexams (SERVE Center 2008). An earlier, much-touted initiative in Chattanooga, Tennessee, usedpay incentives and intensive professional develop-ment for teachers to successfully reduce turnover andraise student test scores at eight low-performing ele-mentary schools (Silva 2008). Evidence suggests that


these types of programs can improve teachers’ perfor-mance, though they must be carefully implementedand outcomes measured rigorously (Lavy 2007).

The federal government also provides direct andindirect (via student loan forgiveness) support toTeach for America, a national corps of recent collegegraduates who commit to teach at least two years inhigh-need schools. Teach for America members havepositive impacts on student achievement relative toother teachers at the secondary level, especially inmath and science (Xu, Hannaway, and Taylor 2009).

Finally, the American Reinvestment and Recov-ery Act of 2009 (ARRA) provides new resources tostates to upgrade their data systems to permit more“value-added” measures of teacher performance,which will help states and districts to achieve an“equitable distribution of qualified teachers for allstudents, particularly students who are most in need,”as required in another section of the act.

The federal government should build on these ini-tiatives, targeting supports and incentives to schoolsserving high-poverty and distressed neighborhoods,including those with concentrations of subsidizedhousing:

� DoED should give added consideration to appli-cations for competitive grants to attract and retainhigh-quality personnel (such as the TeacherIncentive Fund) that closely involve local hous-ing agencies in planning and implementation, andshould target resources to schools serving highproportions of disadvantaged students.

� HUD and DoED should jointly support researchexamining the state of schools in high-povertyneighborhoods with concentrations of subsidizedhousing, including evidence on the qualificationsand effectiveness of their personnel.

Support the development of new schools.Many parents living in poor neighborhoods withconcentrations of subsidized housing are choosing tosend their children to new schools, some of which lieoutside the traditional public system.8 Though char-ter schools vary widely in their effectiveness, someof the highest performing schools serving very lowincome neighborhoods are charters. Many are run bywell-known national and regional charter manage-ment organizations, such as the Knowledge Is PowerProgram (KIPP) and Achievement First. Some arelocally designed and operate in districts that have

adopted a “portfolio” strategy for educational provi-sion, such as New Orleans.9 These schools, most ofwhich focus on the elementary- and middle-schoollevels, tend to have longer school days and schoolyears, and they employ a more “paternalistic”approach to their students’ development in order toclose achievement gaps. The schools operate nearlyexclusively in inner-city communities, serving stu-dent populations that are overwhelmingly low-income and minority. They tend to employ teachersand administrators that come from specialized, non-traditional training programs like Teach for America,New Leaders for New Schools, and The NewTeacher Project (Whitman 2008). Though rigorousresearch on the effects of these school models remainslimited, an early evaluation of KIPP schools in theSan Francisco Bay Area finds that their students makegreater progress on reading and mathematics thanstudents elsewhere in their districts (Woodworth et al. 2008).

The restructuring of many high-poverty urbanschools under NCLB may increase the demand fornew and significantly reconstituted schools in thoseneighborhoods. However, new schools, especiallycharter schools, often face important barriers to entry.The most obvious are state and local policies such ascaps or moratoria on the creation of such schools.More subtle are obstacles such as zoning policies orstart-up capital constraints that make it difficult forthese providers to find acceptable facilities (Mead andRotherham 2008).

Here again, the federal government can play a keyenabling role for expanding new school options in low-income communities. The Department ofEducation operates a program that provides creditenhancements, often to nonprofit intermediary orga-nizations that work across multiple states and schooldistricts to help charter schools leverage other neededfunding to acquire, build, renovate, or lease academicfacilities. Specialized nonprofit lenders, such as theIllinois Facilities Fund (IFF), have leveraged thesedollars to help successful charter management orga-nizations expand their operations in low-incomecommunities (IFF 2008). The Department of Educa-tion has also overseen the Qualified Zone AcademyBond program, which through 2004 provided taxcredits on bonds issued to finance repairs, renovations,and other investments in charter schools serving low-income areas; ARRA provides new funding for the


program in 2009 and 2010. ARRA also initiates anew $650 million program, the “Invest in WhatWorks and Innovation” Fund, which the secretary ofeducation may use to stimulate the expansion of effec-tive schools in high-need areas.

Again, the federal government can and shouldtarget its support for the creation of successful newschools to neighborhoods of poverty and distress,including those with large numbers of federally sub-sidized housing units:

� HUD should target public and assisted housingredevelopment resources, such as those availableunder HOPE VI and the proposed Choice Neigh-borhoods initiative, to neighborhoods served byschools that receive DoED support to increase thesupply of highly effective teachers and principals, orto expand the availability of new schools operatedby high-performance charter school networks.

� HUD should clearly articulate and publicize suc-cessful examples of how CDBG resources can beused to improve public school facilities in high-poverty neighborhoods.

� DoED should target some of its ARRA fundingto distressed neighborhoods with high concentra-tions of public and assisted housing.

� HUD and DoED should collaborate to publicizesuccessful models of new school developmentthat lead to improved student achievement atschools serving neighborhoods with high con-centrations of subsidized housing.

Kids Perform Better in School If They Don’t Change Schools Frequently, and Schools Perform Better When They Have Lower Turnover

A growing body of rigorous research finds that highlevels of student mobility undermine educational out-comes, not only for individual students but also forthe schools they attend (Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin2004). When children transfer between schools, espe-cially in the middle of an academic year, they experi-ence changes in curriculum or teaching methods andthey have to make new friends and cope with anunfamiliar social environment. Consequently, chil-dren who change schools achieve lower educationaloutcomes than those who remain in place, especially

when these moves are within (rather than between)school districts (Xu, Hannaway, and D’Souza 2009).Schools that experience high levels of turnover dur-ing the academic year suffer, because teachers mayhave to repeat lessons already covered and both teach-ers and students have to continually adjust to newlyarriving students and a changing classroom mix. Andwhen students change schools frequently, parents areless likely to get involved in the classroom or theparent-teacher association, and schools miss out onthe benefits of active parental involvement.


Although some children may change schools eventhough they still live at the same address, residentialmoves likely explain a substantial share of schoolenrollment changes (Kerbow 1996; Rumberger et al.1999). For low-income families, high housing costscontribute to residential instability. Families whoserents are unaffordable are more likely to pay theirrent late or miss payments, to face eviction, or tomove in order to avoid eviction or find a cheaperplace to live. Families sometimes double up tem-porarily with relatives or friends, moving frequentlyas they wear out their welcome, and even experienc-ing periods of homelessness (Rice and Sard 2009).And when housing markets are hot, landlords mayterminate leases or encourage tenants to leave so theycan upgrade their properties or convert them to con-dominiums (Belsky and Drew 2008).

The foreclosure crisis is increasing levels of invol-untary mobility, among middle- and upper-incomefamilies as well as the poor, and among homeownersas well as renters. Millions of children are likely to beaffected (Lovell and Isaacs 2008). Too little is knownabout where families move and how they fare fol-lowing a foreclosure, but all the available evidencesuggests that the insecurity, stress, financial hardship,and relocation they are likely to experience willundermine the well-being and educational success oftheir children (Lovell and Isaacs 2008). Renters, whocan be evicted even though they are current on theirrent payments and completely unaware that theirlandlord faces foreclosure, probably face the highestrisk of homelessness (Cunningham 2009). And incommunities hit hardest by foreclosures, neighbor-hood schools may experience unprecedented levelsof turnover (McFarland and McGahan 2008).


Residential moves are not the only explanationfor high rates of student mobility. When schools per-form poorly, parents are more likely to move theirkids from school to school in an effort to find bettereducational settings (Filardo et al. 2008). As a conse-quence, poor-performing schools in low-incomeneighborhoods often experience especially high ratesof turnover—both because of residential instabilityand because of parental dissatisfaction—further under-mining educational outcomes. Here again, housingand school factors combine to fuel a mutually re-inforcing downward spiral for students and the largercommunity.


Local housing and school officials can and shouldwork together to reduce student mobility stemmingboth from residential instability and from other fac-tors. Officials can expand and target housing assis-tance resources to help low-income families findstable housing and move less frequently. They canadjust school enrollment procedures so children donot necessarily have to change schools when theirfamilies move. When substandard housing projectsare renovated or replaced, the relocation of residentscan be planned and phased to minimize school dis-ruption. And local school systems can inform andadvise parents to help them make informed schoolchoices and then stick with them.

Provide housing assistance to reduce resi-dential instability. Research shows that familieswith housing vouchers move less frequently and areless likely to experience episodes of homelessnessthan unassisted families at the same income level(Wood, Turnham, and Mills 2008).10 In the past,special allocations of housing vouchers have beentargeted to families leaving the welfare rolls and tofamilies in the child welfare system. In addition,some communities provide short-term assistance tofamilies at risk of eviction, to prevent homelessness.The effectiveness of these short-term preventionefforts has not yet been rigorously evaluated. Finally,a handful of states and localities is now requiringbanks that foreclose on rental properties to allowrenters to remain in place, and Fannie Mae andFreddie Mac are experimenting with programs that

allow foreclosed owners to remain in their homes asrenters rather than being forced to move.

The federal government has expanded fundingfor homelessness prevention programs as part of theeconomic recovery package, but it could targetadditional resources to help reduce unwanted movesamong low-income families and enable children tostay in the same schools.11 Specifically:

� HUD could allocate a portion of any new Hous-ing Choice Vouchers to jurisdictions with highrates of residential instability, including commu-nities hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. In fact,HUD could go farther, setting aside a pool ofhousing vouchers specifically for low-incomefamilies with school-age children who wouldotherwise have to leave a good school becausetheir housing has become unaffordable or becausethey face foreclosure.

� HUD could encourage local jurisdictions to usetheir HOME block grants and/or homeless fundsto provide temporary housing assistance to enableat-risk renter families with school-age children toremain in their homes, providing examples ofpromising local programs and conducting researchto assess the cost-effectiveness of these models.

� HUD could encourage local housing authoritiesand homeless programs to identify neighbor-hoods where the foreclosure crisis is likely toforce high rates of residential mobility and to tar-get assistance to enable eligible families withschool-age children to remain in their homes.

� HUD should encourage lending institutions toallow families to remain as renters in foreclosedproperties, working with Fannie Mae and Fred-die Mac to develop workable procedures.

Allow children whose families move toremain in the same school. Policies vary acrossthe country regarding school transfers for childrenwhose families move to a new neighborhood withinthe same school district. Some districts require chil-dren to transfer immediately, but others offer moreflexibility, at least through the end of the school year(Filardo et al. 2008). When families move betweenschool districts, their children almost always have tochange schools.

� DoED should gather more systematic informationabout local transfer policies and encourage school


districts to implement flexible rules, particularlyfor families forced to move because of foreclosure.

Minimize school changes in housing re-development projects. Over the past 15 years, localhousing authorities have renovated or replaced manyof the country’s most severely distressed public hous-ing developments. These projects have required therelocation of families with children, sometimes emp-tying whole elementary schools over a very shorttime. Increasingly, public housing officials have rec-ognized the need to coordinate the planning for theselarge-scale relocation efforts with local school officials,and to schedule relocation for the summer months.When local housing and school officials worktogether, they can not only prepare for the impact onschools, but also minimize the disruption for students.For example, Atlanta’s housing authority (workingwith Enterprise Community Partners) successfullycoordinated the HOPE VI relocation in the Mechan-icsville neighborhood with the Atlanta Public Schools(Khadduri, Schwartz, and Turnham 2008b).

� HUD should require competitively awardedhousing redevelopment projects to show howthey will coordinate relocation and reoccupancyplans with local school systems.

Help parents from poor neighborhoodsmake lasting school choices. Local school systemscan and should use school choice options to enablechildren from neighborhoods served by poor per-forming schools transfer to better schools. But indoing so, they should also encourage school stability.In other words, families need help choosing the rightschools for their children and then sticking with thesechoices so their children can benefit fully. For exam-ple, school systems can identify and provide counsel-ing assistance to families making frequent schoolswitches, provide school choice assistance and coun-seling on building relationships with schools to fami-lies receiving city housing assistance, or launch apublic education campaign about the advantages ofmaking a good school choice and sticking with it(Filardo et al. 2008).

The federal government should encourage localinformation gathering and experimentation on strate-gies to promote school stability. Specifically:

� DoED should publicize successful examples oflocal counseling programs that help families makeand then sustain good school choices.

Kids Do Better in School WhenThey Are Healthy, Well-Nourished,and Arrive at School Ready to Learn

How well kids do academically reflects far more thanwhat happens within the classroom. Children whocome to school hungry or poorly nourished, whosuffer from chronic illnesses, or who missed out onpreschool enrichment opportunities all face learningchallenges. The out-of-school environment in poorneighborhoods often contributes to these problems,affecting kids’ performance as students and under-mining in-school efforts to improve educational out-comes (Rothstein et al. 2008).


Low-income neighborhoods, including those withconcentrations of public and assisted housing, oftenexhibit environmental hazards that negatively affectchildren’s health and development (Quercia and Bates2002). Research suggests that the continued preva-lence of lead paint and asbestos in older homes; ele-vated levels of mold, roaches, and rodents; and theresulting higher incidence and severity of asthmaamong poor children in these neighborhoods mayreduce kids’ school readiness and academic achieve-ment. Similarly, the absence of full-service grocerystores in many low-income neighborhoods limits res-idents’ access to healthful, reasonably priced food andmay increase obesity in young children and con-tribute to iron deficiencies, which have been linkedto poor performance in school (Currie 2005; FederalReserve System and Brookings Institution 2008). Inaddition, unaffordable housing costs borne by un-subsidized renters may reduce family expenditureson food and lead to poor nutrition and lower childweights (Meyers et al. 2005).

Schools themselves account for a substantial por-tion of low-income children’s diets via the free andreduced-price school lunch and breakfast programs.But those meals—while supplying the required nutri-tional content—often exceed the federal govern-ment’s own guidelines for fat and sodium intake(Gordon and Fox 2007).

Finally, poor neighborhoods and subsidized hous-ing developments often lack early learning optionsthat prepare kids to succeed in school, as well as


resources to support housing personnel focused onthe local learning environment for children.


Targeted investments in housing and neighborhoodscan help address deficits that undermine children’shealth and readiness to learn, helping to create con-ditions that enable schools to be more successful.Specifically, neighborhood investments can removeenvironmental hazards in the housing stock, attractquality grocery stores and preschool programs, andlink investments in family support services withschool and housing investments. In addition, chil-dren’s nutrition can be enhanced through improve-ments in school lunch and breakfast programs and byexpanded housing assistance, which would enablepoor families to spend more for food. Federal policy-makers can provide leadership, incentives, and guid-ance to state and local officials and nonprofitorganizations to help them improve out-of-schoolenvironmental influences on children’s health andacademic performance.

Remove environmental hazards in housing.A substantial share of the low-cost housing stock,including portions of HUD’s public and assistedhousing inventory, still exhibits severe problems withlead paint, mold, rodents, and inadequate mainte-nance (Popkin et al. 2002). Even modest investmentsin improving home environments can reduce chil-dren’s exposure to environmental hazards that createor exacerbate health problems, thereby improvingtheir readiness to learn. The Harlem Children’s Zone’sAsthma Initiative, for instance, works with familiesin its area to not only screen children for symptoms,but also help eliminate asthma triggers in the homeenvironment, by supplying dust covers and air filtersand providing pest management services (HarlemChildren’s Zone 2005).12

� HUD should target its investments in “healthyhomes” and lead hazard control to developmentsand authorities that serve significant numbers offamilies with young children, who might benefitthe most academically from such improvements.

� HUD and DoED, together with the EPA, shouldassess whether environmentally unhealthy homeand school environments may contribute to lowstudent achievement in the nation’s most troubled

schools, and then target remediation investmentsto these communities.

Use neighborhood revitalization investmentsto attract healthy amenities. Federal invest-ments can help address the lack of healthful foodoptions in low-income communities, and limitedlocal access to high-quality child care and health carefacilities, thereby strengthening K–12 investments.Organizations such as The Reinvestment Fund inPhiladelphia have used the federal new markets taxcredit (NMTC), which supports community develop-ment organizations engaged in commercial and retaildevelopment in low-income areas, to attract super-markets to underserved areas (TRF 2006). They andmany other community development financial insti-tutions (CDFIs), such as Northern California’s LowIncome Investment Fund, have used the NMTC andother support from the Treasury Department’s CDFIFund to finance capital projects for early childhoodcenters in low-income neighborhoods. HUD’sCDBG program represents another source of federalsupport for youth-related services and facilities inlow-income areas (Torrico and Flynn-Khan 2008).

� HUD and DoED should collaborate to mapexisting federal investments in neighborhoodrevitalization, and use the information to build onlocal initiatives in their housing redevelopmentand school reform efforts.

� HUD should encourage applicants for its place-based initiatives—like Choice Neighborhoods—to assess and address needs for these services.

Improve kids’ nutrition through in-schoolprograms. The U.S. Department of Agriculture(USDA) operates the National School Lunch andBreakfast programs, which subsidize meals for millionsof students in low-income communities. Accordingto the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Med-icine, a growing number of schools are going aboveand beyond USDA nutritional guidelines to servetheir students healthier lunches (PCRM 2008).Schools and districts adopting the most innovativeapproaches, however, are typically located outside thepoorest neighborhoods and cities (USDA 2005),where healthier food options are already more avail-able and resource pressures are lower. Additionalfederal leadership could promote the spread ofhigher-quality school meals, and better overall eatinghabits, to students in low-income communities.


� HUD, DoED, and USDA should explore a part-nership to improve the nutritional value of schoolbreakfasts and lunches, with specific attention toschools serving low-income communities that lackfresh, reasonably priced nearby food shopping.

Expand budget relief for poor familiesthrough housing vouchers. A lack of affordablehousing places tremendous pressure on family bud-gets and can reduce spending on nutritious foods.Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assis-tance Program (SNAP, formerly known as FoodStamps) is fairly high among families with children,which helps to offset some, though not all, of theirtypical food cost burdens (Wolkwitz 2008). How-ever, in 2005 more than half of all renters paid morethan 30 percent of their income on housing costs inthe nation’s 118 largest metropolitan areas (Katz andTurner 2008). Housing vouchers remain an effective,targeted way to help alleviate housing-cost burdensfor low-income renters. Several recommendations inthis report suggest ways that the voucher programcould more effectively improve children’s academicperformance. Yet the program also deserves signifi-cantly greater general support than it has receivedrecently. Expanded support would help make up aportion of the gap between rising rents and stagnantincomes that many renters face, and it would expandthe portion of their limited budgets available fornutritious food.

� HUD should seek to expand the availability ofhousing vouchers for low-income families withchildren and commission new research on thelinks between childhood nutrition levels andreceipt of housing assistance.

Promote expanded early learning oppor-tunities in neighborhoods with federally sub-sidized housing. The Department of Educationoperates several grant programs for states and locali-ties to support high-quality early learning opportu-nities for low-income children, especially those inlow-income communities. President Obama’s fis-cal year 2010 DoED budget envisions a greatlyexpanded federal focus on early childhood education,proposing several new and expanded programs includ-ing Title I Early Childhood Grants, an Early Learn-ing Challenge Fund, Early Reading First, andplanning grants for Promise Neighborhoods (Berube2009). Research indicates that one existing program,

Early Reading First, enhances classroom practicesand quality, and has a positive impact on somechild learning outcomes (U.S. Department of Edu-cation 2007). Such programs could provide a furtherimportant spur to neighborhood revitalization byimproving children’s school readiness, and thus localschool performance.

� HUD and DoED should jointly assess existing fed-eral support for early learning in high-povertyneighborhoods served by federally subsidized hous-ing and examine experiences from previous earlychildhood investments made alongside invest-ments in housing redevelopment.

� DoED should consider granting preference tostate and local applicants for early learning fundsthat propose to target those programs to areas ben-efiting from other federal housing and neighbor-hood revitalization investments.

Provide supplemental resources to local offi-cials to integrate educational and human ser-vices investments with housing investments.More local officials are undertaking housing redevel-opment projects with an eye toward improving edu-cational outcomes for very young children and K–12students alike. For instance, the city of San Franciscoand the San Francisco Housing Authority are work-ing jointly with local educational, human services,and workforce agencies to advance economic oppor-tunities for residents of public housing scheduled forredevelopment, and to integrate redevelopment planswith school facilities and reform plans.13 WhileHUD’s HOPE VI program funded community andsupportive services alongside its larger-scale capitalexpenditures, that funding was time-limited anddelivered through housing authorities, which areoften not the best providers of such services locally.In addition to providing more sustainable resourcesto support those local integrative activities, the fed-eral government can provide model leadership forlocal actors by collaborating across agency lines toenhance flexibility in federal workforce and humanservices funds that affect families in housing targetedfor redevelopment.

� HUD and DoED should provide sufficientresources in their Choice Neighborhoods andPromise Neighborhoods programs to supportplanning and delivery of human services targetedto families with children in public and assisted


housing, and HUD and DoED should allowmultiple types of agencies to coordinate the useof those funds.

� HUD should develop a partnership with thedepartments of Health and Human Services andLabor to provide broader family support servicesand employment strategies for residents of publicand assisted housing, including greatly enhancedflexibility to coordinate the use of multiple fed-eral funding streams for individual families, suchas foster care, child welfare, TANF, and work-force training.

Conclusion

This paper identifies four principles linking schoolquality with housing affordability and neighborhoodquality, and highlights important policy opportuni-ties for the federal departments of Education andHousing and Urban Development. In many areas,HUD and DoED can ensure that their respectiveinterventions (HUD on housing and neighborhoods,DoED on schools) yield better outcomes for bothhousing and education. But in addition, HUD and

DoED can work jointly to coordinate their invest-ments, thereby making federal housing and schoolpolicies true complements. The table below summa-rizes the recommendations from the previous sections,categorized by the agency or agencies that would carrythem out.

Each of these recommendations would workwithin the current administrative geographies of hous-ing and school policies. Typically, local governmentssuch as cities, towns, and counties are ultimatelyresponsible for the detailed design and implementa-tion of these policies. But most families are not gov-erned by these jurisdictional boundaries when theymake key decisions around housing, jobs, and schools.Instead, families make those choices largely in a metro-politan context, balancing multiple priorities to selectthe community that works best. Unfortunately, thehyper-localization of U.S. education policy has con-tributed greatly to the concentrations of poverty andwealth evident in American communities today andthe dearth of high-performing schools in many cityschool districts (Bischoff 2008).

There are early signs that the new leadership atHUD may embrace and encourage approaches that

1

HUD should DoED should HUD and DoED should jointly

Enable low-income children to benefit from schools serving middle-income students� Prioritize housing redevelopment

proposals that include actionable school improvement plans with commitment of local school officials

� Strengthen incentives for local housing agencies to help voucher holders access neighborhoods with high-performing schools

� Strengthen incentives for localities to expand affordable housing options in low-poverty communities served by high-performing schools

� Prioritize housing renovation and preservation funding for projects in neighborhoods served by high-performing schools

� Publish successful examples of inclusionary housing develop-ment and provide models for legislation and program design

� Provide technical assistance to hous-ing and school officials engaged infederally funded projects that marryhousing redevelopment with schoolimprovements

� Launch a demonstration in neighbor-hoods with concentrations of HUDhousing and low-performing elemen-tary schools to boost student eco-nomic diversity, improve schooloutcomes for all children, and preserve housing affordability

� Launch a demonstration to providehousing vouchers to families in neigh-borhoods served by failing elemen-tary schools; require relocation toneighborhoods served by high-performing schools

� Target facilities improve-ment funds to districts thatlink mixed-income housingprojects with schoolimprovements

� Provide resources to localdata intermediaries to sup-plement existing data onpublic school report cards

� Publicize successful exam-ples of local enrollmentpolicies that enable low-income families to sendtheir children to high-performing schools


HUD should DoED should HUD and DoED should jointly

Improve school options in high-poverty neighborhoods� Target housing redevelopment

funds to neighborhoods served by successful magnet or charter schools or schools that receive DoEd support to increase the supply of highly effective teachers

Reduce housing instability and school turnover� Allocate housing vouchers to

jurisdictions with high rates of housing instability or reserve vouchers for families with school-age children to enable them to stay at good schools

� Advise local agencies on how to target housing assistance to reduce family residential instability caused by foreclosures

� Assemble and publicize information on state and local rules that permit families to remain as renters in foreclosed properties

� Require housing redevelopment projects to show how they will coordinate relocation and redevelopment plans with local school systems

Enhance child health, nutrition, and school readiness to improve academic performance� Target “healthy homes” and lead

hazard control investments to developments housing large numbers of families with young children

� Encourage applicants for place-based initiatives to assess and address needs for these services

� Research the links between childhood nutrition and receipt of housing assistance

� Partner with HHS/Labor to broaden family services and employment strategies for residents of public and assisted housing; enhance funding flexibility to enable coordinated support

� Support research on the state ofschools in neighborhoods with con-centrations of subsidized housing,including evidence on personnelqualifications and effectiveness

� Publicize successful models of newschool development that lead toimproved student achievement inneighborhoods with high concentra-tions of HUD housing

� Assess whether environmental healthof homes (and with EPA, schools)contributes to low student achieve-ment in highly troubled schools

� Map neighborhood revitalizationinvestments, and use information totarget further housing redevelopmentand school reform efforts

� With USDA, explore partnership toimprove nutritional value of schoolmeals in low-income communitieslacking accessible food shopping

� Assess federal support for early learn-ing in neighborhoods with concentra-tions of subsidized housing; examineoutcomes of past early childhood andhousing redevelopment investments

� Provide sufficient resources in neigh-borhood initiatives to enable planning/delivery of human services to familieswith children, and allow multiple agen-cies to coordinate use of funds

� Give added considerationto applications for competi-tive grants that involve localhousing agencies in plan-ning and implementation

� Target ARRA funding to distressed neighborhoodswith high concentrations ofpublic and assisted housing

� Research local policies onschool transfer, and encour-age districts to implementflexible rules, especially forfamilies facing involuntarymoves

� Publicize successful exam-ples of local counselingprograms that help familiesmake and sustain goodschool choices

� Grant preference to earlylearning program appli-cants that target areas ben-efiting from other federalhousing and neighborhoodrevitalization investments


enhance interjurisdictional collaboration, which bylessening social segregation could produce more inte-grated schools in the long run.14 Although DoED isperhaps less far along in this line of thinking, itmight begin to explore the potential for establish-ing “magnet” schools (middle or high schools) incentral cities that can serve students from across themetropolitan area. Such schools could begin to breakdown the deeply ingrained, yet economically arti-ficial, jurisdictional barriers that separate nearbycommunities and give students from truly diversesocioeconomic backgrounds the opportunity to attend

a high-performing, region-wide school. Short ofsteps such as encouraging district consolidation, sup-porting pilot high schools that allow for some inter-district enrollment could spur the growth of moreeconomically integrated schools of choice in centralcities (Kahlenberg 2001).

Meanwhile, HUD and DoED have numerousopportunities to work individually and jointly toensure that low-income housing and neighborhoodpolicies strengthen local schools, and that schoolimprovement policies redound to the benefit of low-income communities.


Notes

1. Heather Schwartz, “Do Poor Children BenefitAcademically from Economic Integration inSchools and Neighborhoods? Evidence from anAffluent Suburb’s Affordable Housing Lotteries”(PhD diss., Columbia University, 2009).

2. The geographic concentration of poverty and ofaffordable housing is largely a consequence ofracial discrimination and segregation, practicedover decades by both public and private institu-tions. Thus, most high-poverty communities arealso predominantly minority ( Jargowsky 1998).

3. Neighborhood distress and student poverty aloneshould not excuse poor school performance, andas discussed in the next section, schools can suc-ceed even in settings where most students arepoor.

4. Mixed-income neighborhoods do not guaranteemixed-income schools. Higher-income new-comers to previously poor neighborhoods maybe childless or may send their children to privateschools or other schools outside the neighbor-hood (Ellen, Schwartz, and Stiefel 2008).

5. Children participating in the earlier Gautreauxinitiative changed schools and achieved significantschool gains.

6. Data obtained from Housing Opportunity Com-mission and the Montgomery County Depart-ment of Housing and Community Affairs,“Number of MPDUs Produced Since 1976,”http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/dhctmpl.asp?url=/content/dhca/housing/housing_P/mpdu/Number_of_MPDUs_Produced.asp.

7. As discussed, investments in out-of-schoolamenities and services can also enhance schooloutcomes in poor communities, by promotinghealth and school readiness among children.

8. Even after accounting for differences in locationand size, public charter schools enroll highershares of students who are minorities and fromlow-income families (Gross and Pochop 2008).

9. Paul Tough, “A Teachable Moment,” The NewYork Times Magazine, August 14, 2008.

10. Comparable evidence is not available to deter-mine whether the same is true for families liv-ing in subsidized housing projects.

11. It is critical, however, that housing subsidies notbe used to effectively trap low-income familiesin neighborhoods served by poor-performingschools. As discussed later in this section, low-income parents may need help choosing theright school (and neighborhood) and then stick-ing with that decision over time to garner thebenefits of stability.

12. The EPA operates several programs designedto improve environmental quality in schools;see www.epa.gov/schools.

13. See San Francisco Housing Authority, “HOPESF: Rebuilding Public Housing and RestoringOpportunity for Its Residents,” http://www.sfha.org/hopesf/index.htm.

14. For instance, the second, competitive round ofthe Neighborhood Stabilization Program awardsadditional points to applications that demonstrateconsistency with “an established comprehensive,regional, or multi-jurisdictional plan” (U.S.Department of Housing and Urban Develop-ment 2009a). HUD and DOT have also an-nounced a partnership to enhance coordinatedmetropolitan-wide planning to integrate theapplication of federal housing and transporta-tion funding (U.S. Department of Transporta-tion, “HUD and DOT Partnership: Sustain-able Communities,” press release DOT 32-09,March 18, 2009). HUD’s proposal in the fiscalyear 2010 budget for a $150 million SustainableCommunities Initiative could, if adopted, alsoincrease the availability of housing accessible tolow- and moderate-income families in mixed-income, transit-accessible locations (U.S. De-partment of Housing and Urban Development2009b).


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