Multifaceted Effort to Address School Segregation

With school segregation persisting, VCU education professor urges a multifaceted, concerted effort to fix it

Genevieve Siegel-Hawley recently worked on two reports putting the intersection of school segregation, land use and housing reform into focus

March 25, 2024

Research has shown that all students gain wide-ranging benefits from racially and socioeconomically integrated schools, which foster success through improved academic achievement, social mobility, civic engagement, and empathy and understanding.

So why does school segregation persist?

Virginia Commonwealth University School professor Genevieve Siegel-Hawley said it starts with a lack of deliberate response from policymakers.

“A big message from the empirical analysis of suburban school segregation is that we’re just not being intentional about any of it, through law or policy,” said Siegel-Hawley, Ph.D., a professor in VCU’s School of Education in the Department of Educational Leadership. “There’s a real vacuum of response, and that is allowing segregation to spread and intensify.”