Unwrapping the Suburban “Package Deal”

Abstract

Large disparities in educational quality exist between cities and surrounding suburban school districts and are increasing between suburban districts—a trend that emerged over the past several decades and shows signs of growing. Using in-depth interviews, this study examines how children are sorted into different school districts across a metropolitan area. We find that the ideal educational arrangement for nearly all parents is to live in a neighborhood that guarantees access to neighborhood schools that meets their expectations, something we call the “package deal.” Parents look to the suburbs to achieve this ideal, but not all suburbs provide it. Metropolitan patterns of racial residential segregation, interact with families’ resources and constraints to reproduce racial inequalities in educational opportunities across suburban districts. Integrated approaches to housing and education policy are needed to address parents’ preference to couple residential and school choices and reduce growing suburban inequality.

Keywords

inequality segregation suburban schools

Introduction

Residential patterns of racial and socioeconomic segregation frequently mean that students living in high-poverty, predominantly minority neighborhoods attend similarly disadvantaged and segregated schools. These schools generally have fewer educational resources and less experienced teachers (Darling-Hammond, 2010). Past research highlights large differences in educational opportunities between urban and suburban schools (e.g., Kozol, 2012), but as the suburban student population becomes increasingly diverse, inequality between suburban schools is also growing (Frankenberg & Orfield, 2012; Fry, 2009; Logan, 2014).

Our study engages with this increasing suburban diversity by examining how a racially and socioeconomically diverse sample of families across the Cleveland metropolitan area sort into different school districts. Employing data from in-depth interviews with 50 families, we identify mechanisms that underlie this sorting by examining how parents articulate their ideal educational arrangement and the resources and constraints that affect their ability to achieve this ideal. Additionally, we examine how these resources and constraints are shaped by and in turn shape patterns of racial inequality in educational opportunities across the metropolitan area.

We find that the ideal educational scenario for the majority of parents is to couple their residential and school choices, making a single decision that ensures their children access to neighborhood schools that meet their expectations, something we call the “package deal.” Nearly all families look to the suburbs to access this neighborhood-plus-school combination. The most advantaged families easily access the package deal by leveraging financial resources to move to affluent suburbs. The majority of families, however, have to balance the constraints and resources provided by their finances, family and social networks, and parents’ past educational experiences when searching for neighborhoods and schools. Among these families, some access suburban neighborhoods with satisfactory public schools, while other families end up disappointed with their suburban schools and feel compelled to reengage in school selection that is no longer tied to their home address.

Prior studies of how children are sorted into schools tend to focus on patterns of school choice within a single district (e.g., Harris & Larsen, 2015) or by a single demographic group of parents (e.g., Holme, 2002; Kimelberg & Billingham, 2013; but for exceptions, see Goyette, 2008; Johnson, 2014; Lareau, 2014). These studies provide insights into specific school selection processes but do not explain sorting across metropolitan areas that perpetuates patterns of educational inequality in suburban space (Frankenberg & Orfield, 2012). Through interviews with a racially and socioeconomically diverse group of families across an entire metropolitan area, our study documents how unequal access to educational opportunities persists even as families move out of the city and into the suburbs.

Literature Review

Court-ordered desegregation initiated progress toward equalizing educational opportunities for students of different racial backgrounds, as evidenced by declining within-district segregation in the 1970s and 1980s (Clotfelter, 2004). Since then, however, districts have grown more homogenous (i.e., segregated), shifting the primary source of school segregation from within to between districts (Reardon & Owens, 2014). Just as it became increasingly necessary to look beyond district borders to desegregate schools, interdistrict desegregation plans were restricted by the Supreme Court’s (1974) Milliken v. Bradley decision, which absolved most suburban districts of any responsibility for segregation. The Milliken decision set the stage for expanding educational inequality throughout metropolitan areas, especially in the Northeast and Midwest, where school districts are highly fragmented (Bischoff, 2008; K. Orfield, Kuscera, & Siegel-Hawley, 2012).

Suburbs and suburban school districts have experienced increasing racial and socioeconomic diversity in recent decades. While students of color represented just 28% of the suburban student population in 1994, they had increased to 41% by 2007 (Fry, 2009). Growing suburban diversity has been accompanied by increasing segregation and inequality across suburban districts, with students of color more likely to live in lower-income and lower-performing school districts (Logan, 2014; M. Orfield, 2011). Research finds that middle-income Black families on average live in neighborhoods with higher poverty rates than do low-income White families and that Black and White families of equal incomes often live in very different neighborhoods (Reardon, Fox, & Townsend, 2015). In addition, when middle-class Black families move into suburban neighborhoods, these spaces are often “reincorporated” into the higher-poverty neighborhoods these families sought to leave (Pattillo-McCoy, 1999).

Many institutional and structural factors contribute to suburban segregation and families’ ability to access high opportunity neighborhoods and schools. Although the 1964 Fair Housing Act ruled housing discrimination unconstitutional, minority families continue to be affected by racial steering and overt discrimination when purchasing homes (Charles, 2003). Middle-class minority families looking for suburban homes are often steered toward largely minority suburbs (Dougherty, 2012; Yinger, 1991). Additional practices, such as exclusionary zoning, which prevents the construction of higher-density affordable units, keep non-wealthy families—often families of color due to historical and contemporary discrimination—from accessing these neighborhoods and schools (Oliver & Shapiro, 2006; Rothwell & Massey, 2010).

Within this context, how do families navigate residential and school choices? Research on White students typically focuses on middle-class families, finding that they often choose residences specifically for access to high-performing public schools (Holme, 2002; Johnson, 2014; Lareau, 2014). Relying primarily on social networks, White families tend to seek out neighborhoods and schools that are racially and socioeconomically homogenous, and avoid schools with high concentrations of Black students before considering additional school-specific qualities (Saporito & Lareau, 1999).

Although lower-income and minority families typically voice a desire for high-quality education similar to that of their more-advantaged and White peers (Johnson, 2014), financial constraints make it difficult for low-income families to access residential areas with the highest performing schools. In addition, some research finds that the social networks of low-income and minority families may have less information about school rankings or school choice options (Neild, 2005; Schneider, Teske, & Marschall, 2000). As a result, families often select schools for their children without relocating (Goyette, 2008). In contrast to higher-income families who use residential choice to access schools, poor families tend to decouple residential and school choices by exercising within-district school choice after making residential decisions (Rhodes & DeLuca, 2014).

The growing diversity of suburban school districts reveals that low-income and minority families are increasingly seeking school options in suburban neighborhoods through residential mobility, a strategy that was historically more typical of affluent families. Drawing on a diverse sample of families, we first investigate the educational preferences that unite families in a pursuit of access to suburban schools. Second, because inequalities are widening between suburban districts, we examine how families’ school and residential choices interact with racial and socioeconomic structures in metropolitan space. Our study provides a clearer understanding of the processes through which suburban educational inequalities are deepening, even as parents pursue a shared educational ideal.

Social Context

The Cleveland Metropolitan Area

Cleveland is a Midwestern rust belt city that has experienced a rapidly declining population over the past 60 years. The city population is 34% White, 51% Black, 10% Latino, 2% Asian, and 2% two or more races (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015). About one quarter of the households have children, and over half of households with children are living below the poverty line. The city is highly segregated—neighborhoods on the east side are home to predominantly Black residents in contrast with predominantly White neighborhoods on the west side. The city’s segregated racial and economic residential patterns fan out into the surrounding suburbs in Cuyahoga County, which is 61% White, 29% Black, 5% Latino, 3% Asian, and 2% two or more races. Although suburban poverty rates are lower, poverty growth in the suburbs has outpaced the city since 2000, highlighting the shifting composition of suburban areas. Inner-ring east-side suburbs are predominantly minority, while western suburbs are almost exclusively White. The racial divide is such that in 2010, the Cleveland metropolitan area was the fifth most segregated area in the country (Scommegna, 2011).

School Options in Cleveland and Its Suburbs

Families living in the city of Cleveland have a wide variety of available school options. In addition to neighborhood schools, families can apply to one or more of the 80 community (charter) schools; 30% of students exercise this option (National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, 2015). Cleveland also has an open enrollment policy, specialty public schools including magnet schools, and a school voucher program. The district serves mostly students of color, nearly all of whom qualified for free- or reduced-price lunch in 2012-2013 (Figure 1). The four-year graduation rate was less than 60% (the second lowest in Cuyahoga County) and the percentage of 8^th graders scoring proficient or higher on state math tests was just 43% (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Demographic and academic characteristics of school districts in Cuyahoga County: 2012–2013.

Surrounding the city school district are 30 heterogeneous suburban school districts. Suburbs in the southern and western parts of the county, including Rocky River and Lakewood, generally have student populations that are majority White, low poverty, and with high achievement scores and graduation rates (Figure 1). East-side suburbs, including Warrensville Heights, Maple Heights, and Garfield Heights, serve a more economically disadvantaged student population. They tend to be majority minority and have lower graduation rates and achievement scores than more advantaged suburbs. The suburban districts vary in their choice options, offering different combinations of open enrollment policies, charter schools, and school vouchers.

Given the wide range of options available to families in the Cleveland metropolitan area, we explore how different families navigate the process of choosing schools and the connection or separation of their school and residential decisions.

Data and Methods

Data for this study came from households in the Cleveland metropolitan area, which we define as Cuyahoga County. A random sample of census block groups, stratified by racial composition and median income, was selected using a ratio of 5 high poverty (block group median income <$25,000):2 moderate poverty ($25,000 to $50,000):1 low poverty (>$50,000). Households were randomly selected from each block group and screened by fieldworkers for eligibility. Eligible households included those with young children, ages three to eight. The children’s primary caregiver in eligible families was asked to participate in an interview. Over the summers of 2013 and 2014, from among 83 eligible families, a total of 73 interviews were conducted for a study response rate of 88%. An additional 52 follow-up interviews were conducted in 2014.

This article analyzes a subsample of 50 families who had children currently enrolled in school (kindergarten or higher), 38 of whom participated in a follow-up interview. The respondents in our analytic sample covered 18 different block groups in the metropolitan area, with an average of 3 respondents per block group. Just over half of the sample resided in the city of Cleveland; the other half lived in the surrounding suburbs (Table 1). Because our respondents were the primary caregivers in their household, the vast majority were women (90%). The racial composition of the sample was approximately 64% Black, 26% White, 6% Latino, 2% Asian, and 2% two or more races. The higher representation of Black households and lower representation of White households compared to Cuyahoga County overall is likely driven by the oversampling of low- and moderate-income block groups. Respondents had diverse educational backgrounds, the majority had at least a high school degree, and 20% had a bachelor’s degree or higher. Most respondents (70%) were working full- or part-time, but households had incomes ranging from $2,400 to $275,000, with 52% making $25,000 or less per year and 20% making more than $50,000 per year.

Table 1

Sample Demographics

	Count	Percentage Distribution
Respondent gender
Female	45	90
Male	5	10
Highest level of education
Less than high school	5	10
High school graduate/GED	12	24
Some college	23	46
Bachelor’s degree or more	10	20
Race
Asian	1	2
Black	32	64
Hispanic/Latino	3	6
White	13	26
More than one race	1	2
Mean age	35
Locale of residence
Suburb	24	48
City	26	52
Employment status
Employed full-time	25	50
Employed part-time	10	20
Unemployed	15	30
Relationship status
Boyfriend/girlfriend	18	36
Husband/wife	20	40
Not in a relationship	12	24
Income
$25,000 or less	26	52
$25,000–$50,000	12	24
More than $50,000	10	20
Missing income data	2	4
Total N = 50

Interviews lasted on average two hours, and most interviews were conducted at the respondent’s home. Interview respondents were offered a $50 honorarium for participating. A team of 13 White and Black female students and faculty, including both authors, carried out the interviews. Interviews were conducted by the first available team member without purposely matching interviewer and respondent on background characteristics. Because such differences may lead some respondents to feel uncomfortable sharing certain experiences, interviewers were trained to build trust and rapport gradually, establishing a relationship with the parent before asking substantive questions. All interviews opened with the invitation to “tell us the story of your life” and followed a semi-structured interview guide with modules covering family composition and routines, residential choices and trajectories, housing units and neighborhoods, children’s schooling, parent employment and education, and future plans. The semi-structured approach allowed interviewers to follow the respondent’s narrative while providing consistent information across respondents. The use of broad and open-ended “how” questions, followed by probing questions specific to the parent’s narrative, allowed us to gather descriptive stories. We draw on the full breadth of these interviews while focusing on stories surrounding school and residential decisions.

Analytic Strategy

Our qualitative approach was designed to uncover variation in how parents understood their available school choices and subsequently navigated residential and school decisions. First, the recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim, and the authors wrote memos on emerging themes from each interview (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). A team, trained to ensure intercoder reliability, coded the interviews using MAXQDA, marking sections related to schooling, family, neighborhoods, housing, and residential moves. Following this initial analysis, the authors developed further analytic codes, recoding the interviews to capture the reasons for and method of each school selection, school information gathering strategies, parents’ evaluations of their perceived school options, as well as codes to capture residential choice driven by school selection, and instances of where school and residential choices were separate.

In addition, the authors generated a respondent matrix indicating the presence or absence of codes, demographic information, descriptions of school and residential choices, and current residential location and school. The matrix revealed patterns of codes across cases, correlations between demographic variables and codes, and quantified the prevalence of the desire for and access to the package deal (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2013). Finally, the authors reviewed the coding and checked all cases for disconfirming evidence.

The authors are both White women. One of the authors is the parent of a school-age child, and has navigated residential and school choice processes. Neither author is from the Cleveland area, allowing us to conduct interviews and data analysis unaffected by personal experiences or biases about the metropolitan area’s neighborhoods or schools. To further guard against biases, the authors shared hypotheses and findings with the interview team at each stage.

Findings

Looking for the Package Deal

Regardless of educational attainment, income, neighborhood, and race, the majority of families expressed the same ideal for their children’s education—finding a neighborhood school that meets their expectations. When asked how they prioritize their housing unit, neighborhood, and schools in their residential decision-making process, parents coupled the neighborhood and school together. Samantha,¹ a Black mother of two working at a call center said, “I would say the neighborhood combined with the schools—that would be an ideal situation.” Jan, a Black mother of four working as a medical assistant, told us her top priority when deciding where to live was the “school system and the neighborhood.” Suzy, a White mother of two working part-time in administration, said, “I kind of feel the neighborhood and schools go hand-in-hand.” Shantay, a Black mother of one working as a medical assistant, told us, “The schools are pretty much the same as the neighborhood . . . so the neighborhood areas I would choose are the areas that the school would be good, too.” Joe, a White father of four working for a utility company, also told us, “I kind of feel like this goes together anyway; neighborhood and schools . . . with a real good school system you’re going to get a good neighborhood.” Following the overarching preference by parents to couple their residential and school decisions, we define the package deal to be the combination of a neighborhood plus its public school option. As shown in Table 2, 40 out of 50 total families expressed this preference.

Table 2

Preference for Package Deal and Racial Disparities in Access

	Total Families	Black Families	White Families	Other Families
Preference for package deal	40	24	12	4
Achieved package deal through suburban move	21	13	8	0
Satisfied with suburban school	11	3	8	0
Dissatisfied with suburban school	10	10	0	0
Total	50	32	13	5

Note. The column for other families includes three Latino families with children in city schools, one Asian family with a child in a suburban private school, and one family identifying as more than one race with children in city schools. They are included in our analysis of desire for the package deal, but are not included in the discussion of racially patterned access to the package deal because of the small number of families in each racial/ethnic group.

Most parents we spoke with across the metropolitan area did not think the package deal was achievable within the Cleveland city limits. Justin, a White father of two who runs his own software company, plainly expressed this sentiment when he said that living “in a good neighborhood with good schools, I guess that would be ideal. Although at that point you’re in Cleveland and the schools aren’t as good there, so I don’t think that exists.” Parents of all races and income levels voiced dissatisfaction with the city schools, and many indicated that they tried to avoid the public schools in Cleveland altogether. Charles, a Black father of five working two jobs as a cook, told us that his daughter’s high school “won’t be a Cleveland public school . . . that’s the bare minimum.” Tonya, a Black mother of two working as a medical assistant, said she would advise any parent moving to the Cleveland area to choose “anywhere but Cleveland Public Schools.” Annalise, a White mother of two working two food service jobs, simply said that her daughter “won’t get a proper education in a Cleveland public school.”

Almost all families talked about the suburbs as neighborhoods that held the promise of access to high quality public schools, in stark contrast to the city schools. Moke, an unemployed Black mother of three, told us, “I think the suburbs school systems are better . . . the suburbs have more, they taxes higher in the suburbs, so they—more programs and stuff like that for the kids in the suburbs.” Charles told us, “Public schools like Bedford Public Schools [an east-side suburb]—they’re totally different from Cleveland Public Schools. They’re more interactive with the kids.” Annalise emphasized that she wanted to move “out of Cleveland and somewhere where they have decent public schools.” She mentioned Lakewood, a west-side suburb, saying, “Lakewood High School has a lot more to offer than Cleveland Public Schools.” In contrast with prior research that finds differences by racial and socioeconomic background in the school qualities parents prioritize when choosing a school within a single district (Harris & Larsen, 2015; Hastings, Kane, & Staiger, 2006), the families in our sample described the suburbs as a place where they would not have to make tradeoffs between specific school qualities. Rather, parents across diverse backgrounds shared a common expectation that suburban schools—as opposed to city schools—would meet their expectations. As a result, when asked about their ideal educational scenario, the majority of parents did not focus on specific school qualities and instead prioritized a larger goal: to couple their neighborhood and school decisions, making a single choice to access the suburban package deal.

Not all families expressed a preference to couple their residential and school decisions. Ten out of 50 families did not describe the package deal as an ideal scenario (Table 2). Nearly all of these parents used school choice to send their children to charter or public schools outside of their neighborhood. Rihana, a Black mother of two working as a server, has always decoupled her school and residential choices. She told us, “My kids have never like went to school [near] where I live.” Some families found schools they liked through school choice options, confirming research citing high satisfaction among parents engaging in school choice (for a review, see Teske & Schneider, 2001). For these families, school choice options seemed to alleviate the urgency to combine residential and school decisions. In this analysis, however, we focus on the large majority of families who express the package deal as their preference and explore the constraints and resources affecting their ability to access it.

Factors Shaping Access to the Package Deal

Families moving to the suburbs specifically to access schools for their children face a landscape of segregation and uneven school quality (Figure 1). One result of this inequality is that not all families moving to the suburbs are able to access a satisfactory neighborhood school. Twenty-one of the 40 families in our sample who expressed a desire for the package deal had moved to the suburbs, and 10 ended up dissatisfied with their neighborhood school (Table 2). For these 10 families, moving to the suburbs did not provide access to a school that met their expectations. Why weren’t all families who wanted to access the package deal able to? We find that racial segregation in the Cleveland metropolitan area interacts with the resources families can activate and the constraints they face to shape their access to the package deal.

Financial Constraints

Several middle-class families had sufficient financial resources to selectively choose their suburban neighborhood, frequently relying on the advice of friends and family to access schools that were well regarded within their social network. The lack of constraints faced by these families meant they could easily achieve the package deal through a single residential move to an affluent suburb. This was the case for Julie, a White mother of two working at a bank, who moved out of Cleveland when her oldest daughter was entering kindergarten. She described her family’s search process saying, “Okay, we’re shopping for a school district. . . . If we’re going to be paying the taxes we’re going to take advantage of their school system. We want to find something that—that’s good.” Friends told her that Rocky River was a high-ranking district, “the best school district around.” Julie’s family bought a home in the district, and their investment did not disappoint. Julie said the teachers were “wonderful” and the school had a “warm, great atmosphere.” Her daughter was “very happy” there. Families who faced few financial constraints in achieving the package deal, however, were rare in our sample.

For the large majority of families, finances were the most obvious constraint limiting their access to the package deal. Some families who faced significant financial constraints were able to gain access, a pattern more often observed among White families. Sally, a White mother working as a cashier, was raising her two children on a tight budget. She lived in Cleveland for many years but decided to move to the east-side suburb of Lakewood because she “like[d] the school system and it’s a lot better as far as the neighborhoods go.” To afford Lakewood, Sally and her children moved into her mother’s home in the neighborhood for an entire year until she was able to save enough money to rent her own place. Even renting in the “cheap part” of Lakewood, however, Sally was barely able to afford living in this community, occasionally relying on payday loans to make ends meet. Although her finances were tight, Sally told us, “I wanted to stay in Lakewood because of the school systems.” She was very happy with her children’s school and volunteered so frequently with the PTA that she said, “when I sign in they know who I am.” With help from her mother who resided in this suburb, Sally was in a privileged position to access the package deal even while scraping together the financial resources to stay in the neighborhood.

Other families who faced financial constraints were unable to buy or rent homes in the suburbs where they knew the local schools were highly regarded. Tasha, an unemployed Black mother of three, wanted to move her family from the city to Shaker Heights, an east-side suburb with high-performing schools. For Tasha, this neighborhood would fulfill the package deal, but the move wasn’t financially possible for her because the rent in the neighborhood was too expensive, something she attributes to their “astronomical taxes.” Like many Black families in our sample, and in line with prior research (Johnson, 2014; Oliver & Shapiro, 2006), Tasha did not have family wealth to draw on to make the suburban move she yearned for. Nor did she have family living in those suburban neighborhoods, a legacy of discriminatory housing practices (Charles, 2003). Instead, Tasha navigated school choice in Cleveland saying, “I handpicked schools, um none of the schools they go to are just regular walk-in schools. You have to be tested into them. I don’t do public schools.” After considerable effort researching and visiting schools, she enrolled her three children in two different magnet schools and a Catholic school using a voucher. Although Tasha was satisfied with their current schools, moving to the suburbs remained her preferred educational scenario.

Tasha’s story is an example of how limited finances forced some families, who would ideally make one residential decision that guarantees access to a neighborhood with higher-performing schools, to instead separate their residential and school decisions, a pattern observed more frequently for Black families. Sally, on the other hand, was able to access the package deal in an advantaged suburb with help from family, illustrating how Black and White families of similar incomes often end up in very different neighborhoods and schools.

Intergenerational Educational Opportunities

Parents’ childhood neighborhoods and educational background also acted as a constraint or resource for accessing quality suburban neighborhood schools, demonstrating the intergenerational power of discriminatory housing policies and residential segregation. Parents who grew up in the city and attended Cleveland public schools often viewed the suburbs, writ large, as neighborhoods with superior schools and tended not to critically evaluate the differences between suburban school districts. In contrast, parents with past suburban experiences were more likely to identify differences between suburbs, better equipping them to access the package deal. In our sample, White parents more often than Black parents lived in suburban neighborhoods and attended suburban schools during their own childhood.

Star, an unemployed Black mother of four, came from a low-income background, grew up in the city, and attended city public schools but wanted something more for her children. Like many low-income parents from the city, Star believed that any suburban school would be an improvement over her children’s city school. Through a first-time homeowners program, Star purchased a home in the east-side suburb of Garfield Heights, expecting this move to provide access to high quality neighborhood schools. In our first interview, shortly after enrolling her children in the neighborhood school, she told us “the schools are excellent.” But when we spoke again just one year later, she had changed her mind and said, “I’m getting my kids out of this school. I don’t think they’re really learning.” She felt forced to separate her school and neighborhood decisions, just as she had in the city. She told us, “I keep getting these papers in the mail saying there’s a low graduation rate.” Due to the school’s poor performance, her children were eligible for a school voucher, and Star said, “I’m going to get them to go to private schools.” Although the school choice option provided a way to access a new school, it failed to fulfill her preference for the package deal—the very reason Star moved to Garfield Heights.

In contrast, parents with prior suburban experiences often sought out specific suburban neighborhoods because of their well-reputed schools. Autumn, a White mother of one working as a hairdresser, grew up and attended school in Parma—a predominantly White suburb on the west side. Although higher performing than Cleveland public schools, Parma’s school district has lower scores than several neighboring suburbs. Autumn lived in Parma until her daughter reached school age, when she decided to move to a neighborhood with higher quality public schools. Autumn had her eye on Lakewood schools, saying, “I just knew that they were really good, like, people only spoke highly of them.” This was a stark comparison to her experience in Parma, which she described saying, “it just didn’t seem like a put together school.” Autumn moved to Lakewood and was completely satisfied, reporting that her daughter attended a “really nice school.” She was particularly pleased with her daughter’s teacher and told us, “They couldn’t pick a better teacher for her.” Autumn activated her own suburban experiences as a resource to help her evaluate and compare suburban options in pursuit of the package deal.

Social Networks and the Pull of Family

In line with prior literature (Boyd, 2008; Lareau, 2014), we find that social networks, and family members in particular, shape parents’ decisions of where to live and send their children to school. Across racial groups and income levels, parents expressed the desire to live near extended family for the material and emotional support they offered. For some parents, the pull of extended family acted as a resource for accessing high quality neighborhood schools. When Suzy, a White mother of two working in administration, and her husband lost their home to foreclosure, they relied on family. Suzy told us, “Between my husband losing his job, medical problems and bills . . . we couldn’t do it.” Suzy’s in-laws lived in Lakewood and owned a duplex, one side of which Suzy and her family moved into. This allowed her children to attend a Lakewood elementary school, a situation that thrilled Suzy. She told us that the “teachers have been excellent, really, really good,” and “the school is right there . . . everything is so convenient.” Suzy’s extended family served as a safety net, catching them at a time of financial need in a well-to-do suburb and providing them access to the package deal. Suzy’s story, similar to Sally’s, is an example of how the accumulation of wealth in White families serves as an intergenerational resource.

In contrast, Annette, an unemployed Black mother of two, was eager to move into a suburban neighborhood when she received a housing voucher. She moved to Garfield Heights “because it was close to my family. My sister lives five minutes away. My other sister lives ten minutes away.” Unlike, Suzy, however, Annette’s family pulled her to a lower-performing school district. She told us, “When my daughter went to middle school, that school was horrible. They are on academic watch, and because they’re on academic watch I applied for the [school] voucher.” Dissatisfied, Annette turned to school choice—a process she thought she had escaped in her suburban move—using the voucher to enroll her daughter in private school. The poor quality of the Garfield Heights middle school clashed with her understanding of the educational opportunities a suburban neighborhood would provide and forced her to again decouple her residential and school choices to access a satisfactory school. For Annette and many other Black families, making the same decision as many White families—to live close to extended family in the suburbs—did not lead to similar satisfaction with suburban schools.

Metropolitan Inequality and Racially Patterned Access to the Package Deal

Although the families we spoke with were united by their aspiration for the package deal, we found large racial disparities between Black and White families in who achieved it. When parents moved to suburban neighborhoods expecting to access high quality public schools, patterns of segregation, structured by a history of discriminatory housing policies, interacted with the constraints families faced and the resources they had, influencing their children’s access to educational opportunities.

Annette clearly articulated this history of discrimination in Cleveland’s suburbs, saying, “There was a time when African Americans didn’t move over here ’cause it was restricted . . . in the ’50s and ’60s there was a lot of redlining.” The repercussions of this history still affect our respondents, as we find stark racial differences in who successfully couples their residential and school decisions. Among the 24 Black families who desired the package deal, just 13 were able to make a suburban move in hopes of achieving it (Table 2). Of those, only 3 families were satisfied with their suburban school. Among the 12 White families who desired the package deal, 8 families made a suburban move and all 8 were satisfied with their children’s suburban schools.

This striking racial divergence in school satisfaction stems from the interaction of families’ resources and constraints with patterns of segregation across the metropolitan area. Residential segregation influenced parents’ past experiences with the suburbs, their knowledge of suburban schools, and the current neighborhoods of extended family. All three factors affected the suburban neighborhoods families moved to when trying to access the package deal: White families tended to be pulled into majority White and more advantaged neighborhoods with higher-performing schools, while Black families more frequently moved to higher minority, lower-income communities with lower-performing schools. Even among neighborhoods with similar rent cost and median income, such as Garfield Heights and Lakewood (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013), we find that Black families more often landed in Garfield Heights and were dissatisfied with their neighborhood schools while White families more often landed in Lakewood and were happy with their children’s schools. The prevalence of lower-performing schools in neighborhoods with a larger proportion of minority and low-income residents means that Black families who worked hard to access suburban neighborhoods in hopes of achieving the same high quality schools as their White peers were more likely to end up in lower-performing school districts. Disappointment with their suburban schools forced the majority of Black respondents to again decouple their residential and school choices to access satisfactory schools, a burden not faced by White respondents.

In addition to the role of structural inequality as a barrier, we find a handful of instances where racial discrimination kept Black families from living in neighborhoods with well-reputed schools, even when they wanted and could afford to live there. Nikki, a Black unemployed mother of four, spent her high school years in the majority White west-side suburb of Lakewood. She moved to the city after graduation, but when her children got older, she returned to Lakewood to give them access to “good schools.” Nikki was initially very pleased with the schools and said, “Lakewood, if your kids is smart, they going to boost them up and do something else with them. . . . That’s why I really liked the school. Cleveland [schools] won’t take the time to do that.” But Nikki’s son began to have problems with his classmates, something Nikki also experienced as a student and attributed to racism. She told us that her son was so concerned that “the kids going to mess with him,’’ that he couldn’t focus on his work. Nikki reported that “you still run into racism,” and when it started affecting her children, she told us, “I had enough of it.” Nikki moved her family back to the city, where her son’s grades improved and he no longer experienced conflict with his classmates. Nikki’s story illustrates that for Black families who are able to overcome structural obstacles to access the package deal in higher-performing school districts, racism and discrimination may make these suburban educational contexts so unwelcoming that families do not want to stay.

Discussion

For decades after the Second World War, the suburbs isolated middle-class White families in racially and socioeconomically homogeneous neighborhoods with new housing and schools (Dougherty, 2012; Rury & Saatcioglu, 2011). The legacy of the discriminatory policies that largely restricted suburban access to these families, including blockbusting and redlining, continues to affect families today and contributes to the racial wealth gap and entrenched racial residential segregation (Oliver & Shapiro, 2006).

In recent decades, the demographics of suburban neighborhoods have changed significantly as families of color and low-income families have increasingly moved to the suburbs (Fry, 2009; Orfield et al., 2012; Pattillo-McCoy, 1999). But access to high quality neighborhood schools in the suburbs can sometimes be more of a dream than a reality for families of color. The vast majority of parents in our sample expressed a desire to couple their residential and school decisions, preferring to make a single choice to access a neighborhood with high quality public schools. Parents believed this could be accomplished through a suburban move, but patterns of metropolitan segregation have led to large disparities in suburban school quality. As a result, parents’ dissatisfaction with lower-performing schools is no longer contained to city schools but extends into the suburbs. Our study illustrates how families’ finances, parents’ past educational experiences, and the pull of extended family serve as constraints and resources that interact with existing patterns of residential segregation to reproduce inequalities in educational opportunity by race across suburban spaces. In the process of suburban residential mobility, Black families more often than White families face disappointment with their neighborhood schools.

We also find that Black parents who are dissatisfied with their children’s schools often choose to reengage the process of school selection. For parents who made suburban residential moves expecting the package deal, “school choice” can provide an alternative to staying in an unsatisfactory school, but it is also a burden. White families were much less likely than Black families in our sample to face the additional worry and time involved in identifying and enrolling their children in acceptable schools of choice after moving to the suburbs. For these Black families, participation in suburban school choice reflects the broken promise of strong suburban neighborhood schools—a promise still largely kept for White families.

Limitations

Although our analysis includes a diverse sample of families, we do not claim that the results generalize to all families in the Cleveland area or beyond. Instead, our contribution is to explore patterns across families of different backgrounds to identify processes affecting educational opportunities for children. Our focus on a single metropolitan area limits our insights into whether similar processes exist in different metropolitan areas. Differences between geographic spaces, including patterns of racial and socioeconomic segregation, racial composition and patterns of racial change, densities of school districts, and school choice and assignment policies, may affect the processes that sort children into schools and shape parents’ satisfaction with their school options. Furthermore, regions with longstanding policies for school desegregation that transport students out of their neighborhoods to attend school may have completely different orientations about “neighborhood” schools, how they are defined, and how desirable they are (Parcel & Taylor, 2015). Future research should examine how the processes identified in this analysis differ across metropolitan areas, especially those with significantly more or less racial and socioeconomic segregation and with different histories of school assignment policies.

Additionally, due to the racial composition of Cleveland, our sample consists of predominantly White and Black families. Because Latinos and Asians are rapidly growing segments of the student population, future research should examine how Latino and Asian families experience these processes. Despite these limitations, we argue that the existing diversity of our sample provides an opportunity to examine how families’ individual decisions interact with structural patterns of segregation to explain growing educational inequalities in the suburbs.

Policy Implications

At this point in our nation’s history—more than 60 years after the Brown v. Board decision and at a time when many court desegregation orders are being lifted, school choice policies are increasing, and the suburbs are rapidly diversifying—it is critical to reflect on whether education policy is serving the needs of all families. We argue that one of the key education research and policy tasks, now and into the next century, is to stem the tide of growing educational inequality in suburban school districts. To do so, we must identify policies that consider parents’ desire to couple their residential and school decisions. Potential policy solutions must also address the structural context within which parents make such decisions, fundamentally working to reduce residential segregation in order to reduce educational inequalities. In the following, we outline several existing policy options using these criteria.

One set of policy options is to expand the role of school choice, both within and across districts. In our study, parents relied on school choice to find alternatives to unsatisfactory neighborhood schools. Although school choice policies have been rapidly expanding, parents largely participated in choice only when they could not couple their residential and school decisions. Thus, although charter schools and intra-district school choice may allow families to find schools they are more satisfied with (Teske & Schneider, 2001), they do not fulfill parents’ preference for the package deal. Furthermore, studies have shown that school choice policies may increase the racial isolation of students in schools (Bifulco, Ladd, & Ross, 2009). Metropolitan-wide programs of inter-district school choice (for review, see Finnigan et al., 2015) are also unable to fulfill the package deal, although they do offer parents a way to choose a higher quality school for their child without having to relocate residentially. These voluntary programs can also serve as a tool for greater progress toward school desegregation than intra-district choice programs.

A second set of policy options focuses on school-based improvements to existing neighborhood schools. For parents happy with their neighborhood, these policies would provide access to the package deal. However, one potentially significant drawback of place-based improvements is that these investments may preserve existing patterns of school segregation. In addition, prior literature suggests that such strategies are not as effective as school integration efforts for improving children’s outcomes (Schwartz, 2010). Other strategies that may also lead to improved local schools—including annexation and consolidation—expand the geographic boundaries of districts to reduce fragmentation (Holme & Finnigan, 2013). These policies may reduce school segregation and expand available intra-district options for families, but it is unclear whether parents would view broader geographic catchment areas as fulfilling the package deal. One noted benefit of larger school districts without neighborhood-based attendance zones (i.e., districts that decouple residential and school choices) is lessened racial residential segregation (Frankenberg, 2005).

The third set of policy options addresses parents’ preference for the package deal through residential access to neighborhoods with higher quality schools. Housing policies, designed to assist low-income and minority families with residential moves to low-poverty and racially integrated neighborhoods, can generate opportunities for families to access the package deal, especially in areas with highly fragmented school districts (Bischoff, 2008). Mobility programs, including Gautreaux, Moving to Opportunity, and the Baltimore Housing Mobility program, have successfully provided families with access to low-poverty neighborhoods through housing vouchers. Although results are mixed in terms of how effective such programs are in improving the educational outcomes of children (Chetty, Hendren, & Katz, 2015; Sanbonmatsu, Kling, Duncan, & Brooks-Gunn, 2006), they do offer parents access to the package deal. However, operating these programs on a large scale may be difficult and expensive. Inclusionary zoning (IZ) is another housing policy option, where developers set aside a percentage of new developments to be affordable to lower-income families. IZ policies allow low-income families to live in low-poverty neighborhoods with high-performing neighborhood schools (Schwartz, Ecola, Leuschner, & Kofnter, 2012; Massey et al., 2013) and thus have the potential to both integrate schools and provide families with access to the package deal. Whether a sufficient number of affordable housing units can be built in high opportunity neighborhoods remains a critical question.

Given the breadth of policy avenues available, what does parents’ preference for the package deal tell us about future directions for education research and policy? For parents, we find that there is greater value in the coupling of housing and school options than in their separate fulfillment, which demands a more integrated approach to housing and education policy. We argue that it is in pursuit of the package deal that families’ decisions are shaped by and in turn shape patterns of racial inequality across suburban school districts. Unequal educational opportunities between city and suburban districts remain a challenge, but the experiences of our families illustrate the consequences of inattention to issues of equity between suburban school districts. There exists a growing need for housing options for low-income and minority families in high-performing suburban districts, as well as additional resources to strengthen lower-performing suburban schools. Into the next century, education and housing policies must work in tandem to increase families’ opportunities to package their residential decisions with satisfactory schools.

Footnotes

Notes

Anna Rhodes is a doctoral student in the Sociology Department at Johns Hopkins University. Her research explores the intersection of families’ school and residential choices, with a focus on how these decisions affect children’s educational opportunities and outcomes, and how youth engage new educational contexts after residential mobility.

Siri Warkentien, PhD, is a researcher at RTI International in the Center for Evaluation and Study of Educational Equity, 701 13th Street NW, Suite 750, Washington, DC 20005, USA; email: siriwarkentien@gmail.com . She studies the causes and consequences of racial and economic segregation in schools and neighborhoods and examines how exposure to different school and neighborhood contexts over time affects student educational outcomes.

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