Integration and School Choice: Challenges and Opportunities for School Leaders. Equity by Design

Demands for school choice have led to a substantial increase in the educational options available to families in the United States (Stanford, 2023). Throughout the country, many areas have experienced post-pandemic expansions of school choice through micro-schools, virtual schools, and other non-traditional school models (Hamlin et al., 2023). These developments raise questions about how school leaders can support school integration as families are presented with expanding school options. These emerging forms of school choice could help to strengthen voluntary integration by allowing families to choose schools outside of segregated neighborhoods, but new forms of choice could also amplify segregation if families of similar racial and socioeconomic backgrounds congregate in the same schools. Previous research paints a complicated picture offering evidence that school choice can unleash both segregating and desegregating forces (McCallum et al., 2019; Monarrez et al., 2022). This brief describes new approaches to school choice and consider how they might influence school integration. Transformations brought about by emerging models of school choice could shape the future of school integration.