Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Using data from HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher program housing quality survey, we ask whether voucher holders who live in moderate to high poverty neighborhoods in the 55 largest central cities differ in their level of satisfaction with their homes and neighborhoods. We find that:
· Within neighborhoods with moderate to high poverty levels, about 27 percent are “very satisfied” with living in their homes “in general”, and nearly half (i.e. 46 percent) rate their neighborhoods highly.
· Conditions are generally better in lower poverty tracts, but there are also higher poverty tracts, or at least enclaves within higher poverty tracts, where conditions are good and satisfaction is high.
· When we examine the quality and safety of higher poverty neighborhoods where tenants are very satisfied with their homes, we see confirmation that conditions in these neighborhoods are comparable to conditions in the lower poverty tracts.
· For the nearly one-third of tenants in higher poverty neighborhoods who are very satisfied with their homes overall, 97 percent are satisfied or very satisfied with their landlords

Thus, between a quarter and third of tenants in higher poverty neighborhoods appear to live in enclaves where conditions rival those found in lower poverty neighborhoods, with landlords who offer decent quality housing. It therefore comes as no surprise that HCV tenants in these areas would be very satisfied with their homes and neighborhoods. For them, locating in such areas may be understood as a positive choice.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper provides an overview of the major issues surrounding the controversial education reform of school vouchers. It argues that in spite of the suspicion that many on the left have of vouchers as a right-wing market-based reform that will simply reinforce existing inequalities, vouchers can have, if carefully and properly designed, progressive consequences for low-income students in urban areas. However, the type of voucher plan I propose is significantly at odds with the free-market style voucher plan that that is often associated with the reform.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: ABSTRACT

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: This paper examines the use of school vouchers by residents of Alexandria during Virginia's Massive Resistance to school desegregation. Using a geographical statistical techniques under ArcMap, a geographical information systems software package, the paper analyzes three sets of data spatially in order to understand geographical patterns among voucher users. The first set of data is an individual-level data base of some 450 voucher recipients, which I combined with the 1960 Census block-level data of housing in Alexandria, as well as the reconstructed elementary school attendance boundaries in Alexandria (along with school-level data).

The paper has a broad goal of relating the history of Massive Resistance to the political development of public education in Virginia, but I also have three more immediate goals. First, I want to better understand the individual characteristics of those who used these vouchers, to the extent that is possible. Through a historical reconstruction of the individual level characteristics of voucher recipients, focusing on their homeownership status, but also exploring their school choice and student grade levels, I hope to develop more fully the picture of voucher use in Alexandria. I also hope to discern whether there were any geographical or demographic similarities among those who used school vouchers. Second, I want to examine whether the families who obtained these vouchers were confronted with a pending or immediate effort to desegregate the neighborhood school their children would attend if they were in public schools in Alexandria. Finally, this paper seeks to understand whether broader demographic patterns within the city better explain rates of voucher use than an immediate desegregationist “threat.” By examining block-level Census housing data, we can see whether voucher recipients lived in close proximity to African-American families and whether their neighborhood school would confront significant racial change, if the school district shifted to a unitary system of neighborhood-based attendance boundaries. Using the school attendance boundaries detailed by local school officials, and combining those boundaries with the racial and class demographics from the 1960 Census of housing, we can gain a window on what white Alexandrians who opposed desegregation saw looming ahead of them.

The results of the paper indicate that most voucher recipients were not located a) close to individual desegregating African-American students; b) in neighborhoods with significant percentages of African-American residents or c) in school attendance zones with significant potential African-American students. Instead, these residents were clustered in higher income areas of Alexandria, leading to the conclusion that the prospects of one’s local school being desegregated had little to do with voucher use, at least in Alexandria. The implication is that the voucher program did not come close to achieving its objective of making segregation affordable for all Virginians. Instead, the voucher program effectively acted as a wealth transfer mechanism from the general fisc of Virginia to the private school elite.

Supporting Publications:
Supporting Document

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The paper examines both the question of segregation and the question of relative academic performance of private and public schools. It analyzes new data on performance and socioeconomic status of 42,813 students in a nationwide voucher system.