• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About
  • Press Room
  • Poverty & Race Journal
  • Donate
  • Publications
    • PRRAC Publications & PRRAC Authors
    • PRRAC Policy Briefs
    • PRRAC Advocacy Resources
  • Events
  • Contact

PRRAC — Connecting Research to Advocacy

Poverty & Race Research Action Council

MENUMENU
  • Fair Housing
    • Fair Housing Homepage
    • Federal Housing Advocacy – by Program
    • Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)
    • Housing Mobility (Section 8)
    • Low Income Housing Tax Credit
    • Fair Housing and Community Development
  • School Diversity
  • Environmental Justice
  • Special Projects
    • Civil Rights History
    • Civil Rights & The Administrative State
    • Housing-School Nexus
    • International Human Rights and U.S. Civil Rights Policy
    • One Nation Indivisible: School Diversity, Immigrant Integration, and Multi-Racial Coalitions
    • PRRAC in the Courts
    • CarsonWatch
    • Alliance Housing Justice
  • Search
    • Search

You are here: Home / Browse PRRAC Content / PRRAC Op-Eds and Blogs / Housing Choice Vouchers Don’t Lead to Better Education (Huffington Post)

Housing Choice Vouchers Don’t Lead to Better Education (Huffington Post)

February 3, 2013 by

By Philip Tegeler, PRRAC

WASHINGTON — Over the last two decades, federal housing policy has often asserted housing choice as a goal — to help low-income families move to neighborhoods and communities that are safer, healthier and provide better educational opportunities for their children.

But a new study, “Do Federally Assisted Households Have Access to High Performing Public Schools?” demonstrates that the government has a long way to go before their objective becomes a reality for poor families. The study, commissioned by the Poverty and Race Research Action Council in Washington, D.C, found that even Americans with coveted housing choice vouchers designed to move them into better neighborhoods typically wind up living near low-performing, higher poverty schools.

By analyzing national data on elementary schools located near households receiving four major forms of federal housing assistance — housing choice vouchers, public housing, project-based Section 8 and Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) — the study underscores the need for significant changes in federal policy.

The authors, Ingrid Gould Ellen and Keren Horn at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at NYU, took a special interest in housing choice voucher recipients because these families can choose where they want to live. Despite this distinction, Ellen and Horn found that housing choice voucher holders tend to live near lower performing schools than those in project-based Section 8 or LIHTC developments. Only public housing tenants fared worse than voucher holders.

Furthermore, it’s clear from their research that race plays a significant role in where families receiving housing assistance get to live. Ellen and Horn found that families receiving housing assistance in less racially segregated areas had a higher chance of living near quality schools. It’s likely that race-based residential discrimination contributes to making it more difficult for minority voucher recipients to find living space in these better communities.

The authors also found that white voucher holders live near schools that rank on average 20 percentile points higher than those near African American voucher holders and 15 percent higher than those near Latino voucher holders.

Given that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development spends $18 billion a year on housing choice vouchers, policymakers, as well as all Americans, should be concerned about these findings. Clearly, there is a gap between the objectives of the nation’s public housing policy and what actually happens in communities across the country.

Elementary schools play a critical role in a child’s development. A 2010 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found, for example, that students who attend kindergarten with high performing classmates enjoy higher test scores throughout primary school and receive higher income as adults. Research from the National Coalition on School Diversity underscores this point. Access to economically and racially diverse education is a crucial pathway out of poverty, and is one of the most effective ways to address the racial achievement gap. America needs more programs that improve educational opportunities for low-income families, not ones that build more hurdles for their children to have successful life outcomes.

The PRRAC study’s results are especially worrisome for Hispanics, as Latino children are more likely to be impoverished than their white or black counterparts. As a result they, more than other groups, need federal housing assistance that provides a bridge to lead out of poverty. Because Hispanics age 25 and up are also less likely than their black or white peers to have graduated from college, they not only need access to affordable housing but also access to schools that will give them the skills needed to pursue higher education.

By 2050, analysts predict that Hispanics will make up 80 percent of new employees in the U.S. workforce. Our nation won’t effectively compete in the global marketplace if one of its fastest growing groups continues to face barriers to quality education.

As the wealth gap widens in our country, the study findings are particularly salient. An affordable home or apartment in a quality community can connect families to broader opportunities by providing access to quality schools, stable jobs and safer and healthier outdoor space. This not only helps individuals, but is an investment in our nation’s future economy — n particular by connecting children to better schools.

We know access to a high performing secondary school greatly impacts our children, determining whether they will graduate from high school or go on to attend an institution of higher learning. Our nation will be irrevocably harmed if we continue to allow a vast educational achievement gap to exist between rich and the poor.

Filed Under: Philip Tegeler, PRRAC in the News, PRRAC Op-Eds and Blogs

Primary Sidebar

PRRAC Updates

PRRAC Update (January 14, 2021): Cashin on “Whitelash”; More HUD and ED Developments

PRRAC Update (December 22, 2020): 30th Anniversary Issue; and Another Victory for School Integration

PRRAC Update (December 10, 2020): Recommendations for a new AFFH rule + school integration goals for the first 100 days

Previous Updates...

PRRAC in the News

Billions in School Construction in CT Hasn’t Made a Dent in Segregation — But This Year, Things Could Be Different (Connecticut Mirror)

January 4, 2021

Education Dept. Gets $73.5 Billion in Funding Deal That Ends Ban on Federal Aid for Busing (Education Week)

December 22, 2020

Massachusetts’ Public Schools are Highly Segregated. It’s Time We Treated That Like the Crisis It Is (Boston Globe)

December 11, 2020

Opinion: A Truly Life-Changing Voucher Program is Within Reach for Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority (Cleveland.com)

October 12, 2020

Previous Posts...

PRRAC on Twitter

Tweets by @PRRAC_DC

Poverty & Race Journal

Footer

PRRAC – Poverty & Race Research Action Council

The Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) is a civil rights law and policy organization based in Washington, D.C. Our mission is to promote research-based advocacy strategies to address structural inequality and disrupt the systems that disadvantage low-income people of color. PRRAC was founded in 1989, through an initiative of major civil rights, civil liberties, and anti-poverty groups seeking to connect advocates with social scientists working at the intersection of race and poverty…Read More

Archives

Resources at PRRAC

  • Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing
  • Environmental Justice
  • Fair Housing
  • Fair Housing & Community Development
  • Low Income Housing Tax Credit
  • Poverty & Race Journal
  • PRRAC Update
  • School Diversity
  • Housing Choice Voucher Mobility
  • PRRAC in The Courts

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in var _ctct_m = "7608c7e98e90af7d6ba8b5fd4d901424"; //static.ctctcdn.com/js/signup-form-widget/current/signup-form-widget.min.js

PRRAC — Connecting Research to Advocacy

  • Fair Housing
    • Fair Housing Homepage
    • Federal Housing Advocacy – by Program
    • Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)
    • Housing Mobility (Section 8)
    • Low Income Housing Tax Credit
    • Fair Housing and Community Development
  • School Diversity
  • Environmental Justice
  • Special Projects
    • Civil Rights History
    • Civil Rights & The Administrative State
    • Housing-School Nexus
    • International Human Rights and U.S. Civil Rights Policy
    • One Nation Indivisible: School Diversity, Immigrant Integration, and Multi-Racial Coalitions
    • PRRAC in the Courts
    • CarsonWatch
    • Alliance Housing Justice
  • Search
  • About
  • Press Room
  • Poverty & Race Journal
  • Donate
  • Publications
    • PRRAC Publications & PRRAC Authors
    • PRRAC Policy Briefs
    • PRRAC Advocacy Resources
  • Events
  • Contact