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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Socioeconomic Status and School Assignments

More districts use income, not race, as basis for busing, By Jordan Schrader, November 2, 2009, USA Today: “Struggling to improve schools that have large populations of poor and minority students and under legal pressure to avoid racial busing, a small but growing group of school districts are integrating schools by income. More than 60 school systems now use socioeconomic status as a factor in school assignments, says Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, which studies income inequality. Students in Champaign, Ill.; Kalamazoo, Mich.; and Louisville have returned this year to income-based assignments…”