IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/edfpol/v18y2023i3p547-563.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Data Access and the Study of Educational Equity: Implications from a National School Boundary Data Collection Effort

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah Asson

    (Education Policy Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802)

  • Erica Frankenberg

    (Education Policy Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802)

  • Annie Maselli

    (Education Policy Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802)

  • Ian Burfoot-Rochford

    (Independent scholar, Montpelier, VT 05602)

  • Christopher S. Fowler

    (Department of Geography, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802)

  • Ruth Krebs Buck

    (Department of Geography, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802)

Abstract

School attendance zone boundary (AZB) data remain relatively underdocumented and understudied within the field of education, despite their critical implications for educational (in)equity. AZBs shape student outcomes and residential sorting patterns both by determining the public schools a student is assigned to and by signaling neighborhood characteristics to prospective homebuyers. The limited access, regulation, and review of AZB data to date has left a gap in the knowledge base, having the potential to leave intact (and exacerbate) patterns of segregation that maintain inequities in educational opportunity. Lack of data also limits our ability to know whether and when AZBs may mitigate segregation. In this brief, we examine a novel data collection effort of current and historical AZB data—the Longitudinal School Attendance Boundary System—to explore the contextual and political factors associated with data access and data quality. We aim to show how factors that hinder access to quality AZB data affect the study of educational equity, and we advocate for more comprehensive, top–down governmental efforts to create, maintain, and collect these data.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Asson & Erica Frankenberg & Annie Maselli & Ian Burfoot-Rochford & Christopher S. Fowler & Ruth Krebs Buck, 2023. "Data Access and the Study of Educational Equity: Implications from a National School Boundary Data Collection Effort," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 18(3), pages 547-563, Summer.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:18:y:2023:i:3:p:547-563
    DOI: 10.1162/edfp_a_00388
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00388
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1162/edfp_a_00388?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:18:y:2023:i:3:p:547-563. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: The MIT Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.