ABSTRACT
The author explores on what local school boards, as state-authorized policymakers, can achieve to create greater economic integration the heart of the matter. He also explores briefly what three communities: La Crosse, Wisconsin; Wake County, North Carolina; and Cambridge, Massachusetts have done. Then he models the degree of economic integration that could be achieved if local school boards within two major metropolitan areas would pursue Socio Economic Status (SES) integration policies within each school district. He examines, however, the potential for local school board action in the Baltimore area, which, like Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, is a Big Box region. School poverty depresses the scores of all students in schools where at least half of the students are eligible for subsidized lunch, and seriously depresses the scores when over 75 percent of students live in low-income households. The housing opportunities commission has bought or rents 29 percent of the moderately priced dwelling units (MPDUs).
