New report finds enduring segregation shutting out families from opportunity

Tonight I’ll join colleagues from across Virginia to discuss a powerful new report HOME of VA helped to create.

The study, “Can We Live and Learn Together 2.0,” updates a similar one from 2017. Seven years later, we’re revealing new data on housing and school segregation in the Richmond region – with a bottom line that should give us all pause: “segregation is an outcome and a cycle resulting from perni­cious policies at the local, state, and fed­eral level that need to be either changed or overturned.”

In other words, segregation isn’t natural or inevitable. It’s a failure of policy. And that means we can change it.

It shouldn’t matter where we live. People everywhere deserve equal access to thriving communities that they choose to call “home.” But we all know that where we live does matter.  Our addresses shape access to good jobs, transit connections, healthy food, shade, safety, and so much more.

When it comes to education, the sharp and enduring segregation of our communities is mirrored in our schools. And with that stark separation comes major differences in access to opportunity.

Consider these findings – and see if they’re as troubling to you as they are to me:

• Few areas in our region with affordable housing have access to schools with top-tier scores for reading proficiency.
• In the Richmond region, families with Housing Choice Vouchers, the federal government’s largest program of housing assistance, cannot live near schools with high levels of reading proficiency. Housing in those areas is more expensive than vouchers can cover. Put simply, this shuts out children in low-income families from accessing high-quality education.
• Children living in high-poverty neighborhoods disproportionately learn from teachers who lack expertise in their fields.

We all know this is true. It’s why, if we have children, we try to live close to schools we prefer. But every child in the Richmond region should have equal access to high-quality educational opportunities. Anything less, as the report notes, runs “counter to the needs of a thriving community.”

There are reasons for hope. Our report offers pages of policy recommendations – practical solutions we could push our region’s leaders to embrace now.

Many of these interventions wouldn’t cost our localities a dime. In fact, several of our proposed solutions would boost revenues and lower household costs by making affordable housing construction more possible in more places. (This is particularly relevant now, with the region’s three largest localities – the City of Richmond and Chesterfield and Henrico Counties – all engaged in re-zoning work.) The report calls our attention to a crisis of opportunity, but it also points the way to progress.

I hope you will check out the report’s executive summary, a readable handful of pages that could help shape your decisions as you vote this fall. Then, ask tough questions of candidates, and of yourself: what kind of community do you want to call “home” – one that expands opportunity to all, or continues to shut out many?

Most of all, I hope you will keep in mind that this report isn’t merely a collection of maps and statistics. As we write, “There are real students and real families…whose learning op­portunities and future contributions to our community will be shaped by our choices today.” We will not get a second chance to get it right.

—Laura Dobbs, Director of Policy