ABSTRACT
This study uses social justice and spatial inequity framework to assess the difference of access to educational facilities experienced by suburban neighborhoods in Buffalo Metropolitan Area (BMA). This paper aims at highlighting a spatial inequity of access to quality school in suburban neighborhoods due to spatial variability of elementary school performance in inner and outer suburban neighborhoods of BMA in 2016. The context of this study is suburban neighborhood stratification in Buffalo, New York. Suburban once considered as a monolith with good quality neighborhoods and schools currently undergoes neighborhood change, which leads to stratification and bifurcates into striving outer suburbs and declining inner suburbs. This has manifested in school performance due to the tie between housing location and school attendance. Literature shows school performance is related to neighborhoods characteristics and schools’ sociodemographic. The research questions are: 1) Is there any difference in neighborhood hardship index (NHI) between inner and outer suburban neighborhoods? 2) Is there any difference in elementary school (ES) performance between inner and outer suburban neighborhoods? 3) What is the relationship between school performance with neighborhood and school factors? t-Test measures the difference of means of neighborhood hardship index and school performance between inner and outer suburban neighborhoods. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression models the relationship between school performance with neighborhood characteristics and students sociodemographic. The findings depict a variation of school performance across neighborhoods in conjunction with stratification of suburban neighborhoods. The percentage of students from multi race is a significant neighborhood factor that positively related to school performance. The percentage of students receiving free-lunch (FRL) is a significant school factor that negatively correlated with school performance. Suburban dummy of whether a neighborhood belongs to inner suburban or outer suburban neighborhood significantly affects the school performance. Neighborhoods with lower school performance are located in inner suburban. Policy implications call concerted efforts from education and urban planners to promote spatial equity to access quality schools across neighborhoods.
