Erica Frankenberg
Biographic Data
| ID | 3935655 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Erica Frankenberg |
| GIVEN NAMES | Erica |
| FAMILY NAME | Frankenberg |
| SIGNATURE | FRANKENBERG E |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 157 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Dual language immersion programs and their neighborhoods
Historical Patterns and Trends in Racial/Ethnic Disproportionality in School Discipline in the United States
This visualization represents the historical patterns and trends in racial/ethnic differences in punitive school discipline over the last five decades in K-12 public schools in the United States. Overall, out-of-school suspension rates show an inverted-U trend with significant increases between 1970 and 2010 followed by decreases in the last decade. On the other hand, corporal punishment rates (and associated racial/ethnic disparities) show a con…
Attendance zones in the suburbs
While suburban schools across the country have become increasingly racially and economically diverse in recent decades, many remain highly segregated. School attendance zone boundaries (AZBs) play a critical role in shaping these patterns of within-district segregation. AZBs are especially important in suburban areas with growing and diversifying student populations. Using novel, longitudinal AZB data dating back to 1990, authors Sarah Asson, Eri…
Student Assignment Policies and Racial and Income Segregation of Schools, School Attendance Zones, and Neighborhoods
Purpose: This article examines the relationship between educational and residential segregation in three school districts with differing approaches to student assignment. Racial and income segregation within school districts is often only examined at the school level, even as school patterns are often related to residential and attendance zone segregation depending on integration policies aimed at decoupling these relationships. Research Method/A…
School and Residential Segregation in School Districts with Voluntary Integration Policies
Since the Supreme Court’s 2007 Parents Involved decision, school districts have been pursuing integration in more legally and politically charged environments. The retreat of the federal government in the racial integration of schools is well documented, but less understood is what local school districts are doing to fill that void. This study documents the districts in the United States that are engaged in voluntary integration. We measure the r…
A Comprehensive and Practical Approach to Policy Guidance
As the federal entity in charge of enforcing civil rights law, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) plays a critical role in addressing the vast inequities that exist in U.S. education. Through an analysis of the policy guidance OCR issued for a number of areas during the Obama administration, we illustrate the agency’s comprehensive and practical approach to helping ensure that young people from different backgrounds …
Preferences, Proximity, and Controlled Choice
This study provides evidence studying one diverse, countywide district’s integration efforts utilizing school choice and parental preferences. The findings illustrate substantial differences about the way in which the district’s student assignment policy affects students. In particular, this choice-based integration policy with a weak geographic preference still advantages those who choose their nearest schools as well as white students and those…
The Disintegration of Memphis-Shelby County, Tennessee
In this qualitative case study, we explore the political impulses behind suburban secession from the 2013 Memphis-Shelby County merger, the largest school district consolidation in recent history. Decades removed from the Civil Rights Movement, during a period of stark inequality, colorblind law and policymaking, and a diminished understanding of education as a societal benefit, the central suburban rationale for secession, local control, carries…
School Choice, Racial Segregation, and Poverty Concentration
This article examines how student movements between traditional public schools (TPSs) and charters—both brick and mortar and cyber—may be associated with both racial isolation and poverty concentration. Using student-level data from the universe of Pennsylvania public schools, this study builds upon previous research by specifically examining student transfers into charter schools, disaggregating findings by geography. We find that, on average, t…
Segregation by District Boundary Line
Boundary lines have long served as a mechanism to divide people, determining the quality of available resources, and ultimately, educational opportunity. In recent years, new school district boundaries have proliferated as local communities attempt to secede from larger school districts. In this study of Memphis-Shelby County, Tennessee, we extend prior research on school district fragmentation and consolidation by examining the largest American …
Assessing Segregation Under a New Generation of Controlled Choice Policies
Student assignment policies (SAPs) in K–12 schools can either reproduce or help ameliorate existing inequality. Some districts are trying to maintain voluntarily adopted integration policies despite the Supreme Court’s recent 2007 decision in Parents Involved, which prohibited most race-conscious school choice policies that were effective and popular ways of accomplishing integration. While alternative policies with minimal or no use of race are …
The End of Consensus
At a time in which school enrollment is racially diverse yet neighborhoods remain segregated and there are increased legal restrictions on integration efforts, understanding under what conditions school diversity efforts are successful and retain popular support takes on renewed importance. Wake County is a unique case of a Southern school system that was never under court-ordered desegregation, yet the school board and community for years suppor…
Diversifying High Schools in Racially Changing Suburban Districts
Although demographic change is happening more rapidly at the elementary school level, the intersection of these demographic trends with the changing mission of high schools may offer the opportunity to reduce some of the persistent racial gaps in educational attainment. At the same time, when schools became diverse as desegregation took place, stratification within schools occurred, leading to inequality within diverse schools. Thus, this article…
Race and Place
The era of mass suburbanization in the mid-20th century led to “a metropolitan America composed of an urban core and essentially homogenous suburbs” (Hanlon, Vicino, & Short, 2006, p. 2129). Suburb
Schools, Magnet
Magnet schools are public elementary and secondary schools with special educational programs that attract students from across an entire district or multiple districts. Magnet schools were originally designed to promote integration through family choice, by drawing white and middle‐class students into urban schools with unique offerings rather than seeing them leave for nearby suburban schools. Today, desegregation is no longer emphasized as heav…
The New Politics of Diversity
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Education distributed $2,500,000 via a competitive grant program, the Technical Assistance for Student Assignment Plans, to 11 school districts. The grants and their local effects provide an opportunity to examine the new politics of diversity in public education. Participants cited a wide range of conceptions of diversity, most of which were race-neutral. Some districts enacted policies deemphasizing their origina…
Increasingly Segregated and Unequal Schools as Courts Reverse Policy
Purpose: School administrators and policy makers live in a complex, changing policy universe in which there are many competing demands and political pressures. Rarely is there much time to think about sensitive issues of long duration that are not part of the immediate demands they face. This article is about such an issue, a question that will deeply influence the future of schools and communities but which is usually ignored—the increasing sepa…
The Politics of Maintaining Diversity Policies in Demographically Changing Urban-Suburban School Districts
This study focuses on how the demographic change occurring within two county-wide school districts and communities in the South, including the creation of suburban enclaves alongside central cities overwhelmingly made up of low-income students of color, influences community support for diversity policies within two school districts with a history of voluntary integration efforts: Jefferson County Public Schools (Louisville, KY) and the Wake Count…
Demography and Educational Politics in the Suburban Marketplace
The demography of public school enrollment continues to change dramatically, with students of color comprising an increasing proportion of the whole. As such, suburbia, with both White and non-White students, is a place in which integration is more possible in the beginning of the 21st century. Due to the intertwined nature of how these factors affect educational politics in suburban districts, we draw on Hirschman's exit-voice-loyalty framework …
Introduction
Equity has long been one of the main goals of public education in the United States, even though public schooling has often fallen short of the ideal in practice. Notions of what educational equity requires have shifted over time. Currently, as this issue's articles show, many ideas about educational equity are contending with each other in policy and politics. The political environment is not just complex but also challenging. At a time when res…
School Board Leadership and Policymaking in Changing Political Environments
The Role of Residential Segregation in Contemporary School Segregation
Inaction to address housing segregation in metropolitan areas has resulted in persistently high levels of residential segregation. As the Supreme Court has recently limited school districts’ voluntary integration efforts, this article considers the role of residential segregation in maintaining racially isolated schools, namely what is known about the reciprocal relationship between housing and schooling segregation patterns. In addition, it exam…
Exploring Teachers’ Racial Attitudes in a Racially Transitioning Society
The growing diversity of America’s public school enrollment makes it essential that all teachers be prepared for teaching students from diverse backgrounds. This paper explores the racial attitudes of teachers, specifically probing whether, and if so how, they may differ across schools of different student racial contexts. In particular, this paper compares how diverse or segregated schools, conceptualized in three different ways, may impact teac…
Diverse Schools in a Democratic Society
The 2010 Census revealed the extent to which today’s metropolitan areas are growing increasingly diverse. At the forefront of this change are schools. Yet, research on school context continues to rely upon a traditional, cross-sectional bifurcation that designates schools as either diverse or not. This classification may be especially inaccurate for some educational outcomes such as whether schools are cultivating effective citizenship for a dive…
Choice without Equity
The political popularity of charter schools is unmistakable. This article explores the relationship between charter schools and segregation across the country, in 40 states, the District of Columbia, and several dozen metropolitan areas with large enrollments of charter school students in 2007-08. The descriptive analysis of the charter school enrollment is aimed at understanding the enrollment and characteristics of charter school students and t…
The Role of Residential Segregation in Contemporary School Segregation
Inaction to address housing segregation in metropolitan areas has resulted in persistently high levels of residential segregation. As the Supreme Court has recently limited school districts’ voluntary integration efforts, this article considers the role of residential segregation in maintaining racially isolated schools, namely what is known about the reciprocal relationship between housing and schooling segregation patterns. In addition, it exam…
Segregation by District Boundary Line
Boundary lines have long served as a mechanism to divide people, determining the quality of available resources, and ultimately, educational opportunity. In recent years, new school district boundaries have proliferated as local communities attempt to secede from larger school districts. In this study of Memphis-Shelby County, Tennessee, we extend prior research on school district fragmentation and consolidation by examining the largest American …
Diverse Schools in a Democratic Society
The 2010 Census revealed the extent to which today’s metropolitan areas are growing increasingly diverse. At the forefront of this change are schools. Yet, research on school context continues to rely upon a traditional, cross-sectional bifurcation that designates schools as either diverse or not. This classification may be especially inaccurate for some educational outcomes such as whether schools are cultivating effective citizenship for a dive…
The Disintegration of Memphis-Shelby County, Tennessee
In this qualitative case study, we explore the political impulses behind suburban secession from the 2013 Memphis-Shelby County merger, the largest school district consolidation in recent history. Decades removed from the Civil Rights Movement, during a period of stark inequality, colorblind law and policymaking, and a diminished understanding of education as a societal benefit, the central suburban rationale for secession, local control, carries…
Walking the Walk
This study is a longitudinal analysis of the early career decisions made by graduates of an urban-focused secondary teacher preparation program. By matching graduates’ self-reported commitment to teaching in urban schools at the end of the training program to the demographic data of the schools where they subsequently teach, the authors explore the relationship between preservice teacher attitudes about urban schools and their actual career decis…
Assessing Segregation Under a New Generation of Controlled Choice Policies
Student assignment policies (SAPs) in K–12 schools can either reproduce or help ameliorate existing inequality. Some districts are trying to maintain voluntarily adopted integration policies despite the Supreme Court’s recent 2007 decision in Parents Involved, which prohibited most race-conscious school choice policies that were effective and popular ways of accomplishing integration. While alternative policies with minimal or no use of race are …
Exploring Teachers’ Racial Attitudes in a Racially Transitioning Society
The growing diversity of America’s public school enrollment makes it essential that all teachers be prepared for teaching students from diverse backgrounds. This paper explores the racial attitudes of teachers, specifically probing whether, and if so how, they may differ across schools of different student racial contexts. In particular, this paper compares how diverse or segregated schools, conceptualized in three different ways, may impact teac…
A Comprehensive and Practical Approach to Policy Guidance
As the federal entity in charge of enforcing civil rights law, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) plays a critical role in addressing the vast inequities that exist in U.S. education. Through an analysis of the policy guidance OCR issued for a number of areas during the Obama administration, we illustrate the agency’s comprehensive and practical approach to helping ensure that young people from different backgrounds …
Redefining Diversity
This article examines the federal and local political response to the Parents Involved decision. At the federal level, developments suggest a reaction to Parents Involved that, since President Obama has taken office, has been largely supportive of voluntary efforts to promote racial diversity. The administration has also been seeking to enforce more traditional race-based civil rights cases. Locally, even though reactions to the decision are as v…
The New Politics of Diversity
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Education distributed $2,500,000 via a competitive grant program, the Technical Assistance for Student Assignment Plans, to 11 school districts. The grants and their local effects provide an opportunity to examine the new politics of diversity in public education. Participants cited a wide range of conceptions of diversity, most of which were race-neutral. Some districts enacted policies deemphasizing their origina…
The Politics of Maintaining Diversity Policies in Demographically Changing Urban-Suburban School Districts
This study focuses on how the demographic change occurring within two county-wide school districts and communities in the South, including the creation of suburban enclaves alongside central cities overwhelmingly made up of low-income students of color, influences community support for diversity policies within two school districts with a history of voluntary integration efforts: Jefferson County Public Schools (Louisville, KY) and the Wake Count…
Preferences, Proximity, and Controlled Choice
This study provides evidence studying one diverse, countywide district’s integration efforts utilizing school choice and parental preferences. The findings illustrate substantial differences about the way in which the district’s student assignment policy affects students. In particular, this choice-based integration policy with a weak geographic preference still advantages those who choose their nearest schools as well as white students and those…
School Board Leadership and Policymaking in Changing Political Environments
School and Residential Segregation in School Districts with Voluntary Integration Policies
Since the Supreme Court’s 2007 Parents Involved decision, school districts have been pursuing integration in more legally and politically charged environments. The retreat of the federal government in the racial integration of schools is well documented, but less understood is what local school districts are doing to fill that void. This study documents the districts in the United States that are engaged in voluntary integration. We measure the r…
Diversifying High Schools in Racially Changing Suburban Districts
Although demographic change is happening more rapidly at the elementary school level, the intersection of these demographic trends with the changing mission of high schools may offer the opportunity to reduce some of the persistent racial gaps in educational attainment. At the same time, when schools became diverse as desegregation took place, stratification within schools occurred, leading to inequality within diverse schools. Thus, this article…
Race and Place
The era of mass suburbanization in the mid-20th century led to “a metropolitan America composed of an urban core and essentially homogenous suburbs” (Hanlon, Vicino, & Short, 2006, p. 2129). Suburb
Demography and Educational Politics in the Suburban Marketplace
The demography of public school enrollment continues to change dramatically, with students of color comprising an increasing proportion of the whole. As such, suburbia, with both White and non-White students, is a place in which integration is more possible in the beginning of the 21st century. Due to the intertwined nature of how these factors affect educational politics in suburban districts, we draw on Hirschman's exit-voice-loyalty framework …
Historical Patterns and Trends in Racial/Ethnic Disproportionality in School Discipline in the United States
This visualization represents the historical patterns and trends in racial/ethnic differences in punitive school discipline over the last five decades in K-12 public schools in the United States. Overall, out-of-school suspension rates show an inverted-U trend with significant increases between 1970 and 2010 followed by decreases in the last decade. On the other hand, corporal punishment rates (and associated racial/ethnic disparities) show a con…
Introduction
Equity has long been one of the main goals of public education in the United States, even though public schooling has often fallen short of the ideal in practice. Notions of what educational equity requires have shifted over time. Currently, as this issue's articles show, many ideas about educational equity are contending with each other in policy and politics. The political environment is not just complex but also challenging. At a time when res…
Statement of American Social Scientists of Research on School Desegregation to the U.S. Supreme Court in Parents v. Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson County
Walking the Walk
This study is a longitudinal analysis of the early career decisions made by graduates of an urban-focused secondary teacher preparation program. By matching graduates’ self-reported commitment to teaching in urban schools at the end of the training program to the demographic data of the schools where they subsequently teach, the authors explore the relationship between preservice teacher attitudes about urban schools and their actual career decis…
Choice without Equity
The political popularity of charter schools is unmistakable. This article explores the relationship between charter schools and segregation across the country, in 40 states, the District of Columbia, and several dozen metropolitan areas with large enrollments of charter school students in 2007-08. The descriptive analysis of the charter school enrollment is aimed at understanding the enrollment and characteristics of charter school students and t…
Redefining Diversity
This article examines the federal and local political response to the Parents Involved decision. At the federal level, developments suggest a reaction to Parents Involved that, since President Obama has taken office, has been largely supportive of voluntary efforts to promote racial diversity. The administration has also been seeking to enforce more traditional race-based civil rights cases. Locally, even though reactions to the decision are as v…
Exploring Teachers’ Racial Attitudes in a Racially Transitioning Society
The growing diversity of America’s public school enrollment makes it essential that all teachers be prepared for teaching students from diverse backgrounds. This paper explores the racial attitudes of teachers, specifically probing whether, and if so how, they may differ across schools of different student racial contexts. In particular, this paper compares how diverse or segregated schools, conceptualized in three different ways, may impact teac…
Diverse Schools in a Democratic Society
The 2010 Census revealed the extent to which today’s metropolitan areas are growing increasingly diverse. At the forefront of this change are schools. Yet, research on school context continues to rely upon a traditional, cross-sectional bifurcation that designates schools as either diverse or not. This classification may be especially inaccurate for some educational outcomes such as whether schools are cultivating effective citizenship for a dive…
Demography and Educational Politics in the Suburban Marketplace
The demography of public school enrollment continues to change dramatically, with students of color comprising an increasing proportion of the whole. As such, suburbia, with both White and non-White students, is a place in which integration is more possible in the beginning of the 21st century. Due to the intertwined nature of how these factors affect educational politics in suburban districts, we draw on Hirschman's exit-voice-loyalty framework …
Introduction
Equity has long been one of the main goals of public education in the United States, even though public schooling has often fallen short of the ideal in practice. Notions of what educational equity requires have shifted over time. Currently, as this issue's articles show, many ideas about educational equity are contending with each other in policy and politics. The political environment is not just complex but also challenging. At a time when res…
School Board Leadership and Policymaking in Changing Political Environments
The Role of Residential Segregation in Contemporary School Segregation
Inaction to address housing segregation in metropolitan areas has resulted in persistently high levels of residential segregation. As the Supreme Court has recently limited school districts’ voluntary integration efforts, this article considers the role of residential segregation in maintaining racially isolated schools, namely what is known about the reciprocal relationship between housing and schooling segregation patterns. In addition, it exam…
Increasingly Segregated and Unequal Schools as Courts Reverse Policy
Purpose: School administrators and policy makers live in a complex, changing policy universe in which there are many competing demands and political pressures. Rarely is there much time to think about sensitive issues of long duration that are not part of the immediate demands they face. This article is about such an issue, a question that will deeply influence the future of schools and communities but which is usually ignored—the increasing sepa…
The Politics of Maintaining Diversity Policies in Demographically Changing Urban-Suburban School Districts
This study focuses on how the demographic change occurring within two county-wide school districts and communities in the South, including the creation of suburban enclaves alongside central cities overwhelmingly made up of low-income students of color, influences community support for diversity policies within two school districts with a history of voluntary integration efforts: Jefferson County Public Schools (Louisville, KY) and the Wake Count…
Schools, Magnet
Magnet schools are public elementary and secondary schools with special educational programs that attract students from across an entire district or multiple districts. Magnet schools were originally designed to promote integration through family choice, by drawing white and middle‐class students into urban schools with unique offerings rather than seeing them leave for nearby suburban schools. Today, desegregation is no longer emphasized as heav…
The New Politics of Diversity
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Education distributed $2,500,000 via a competitive grant program, the Technical Assistance for Student Assignment Plans, to 11 school districts. The grants and their local effects provide an opportunity to examine the new politics of diversity in public education. Participants cited a wide range of conceptions of diversity, most of which were race-neutral. Some districts enacted policies deemphasizing their origina…
Diversifying High Schools in Racially Changing Suburban Districts
Although demographic change is happening more rapidly at the elementary school level, the intersection of these demographic trends with the changing mission of high schools may offer the opportunity to reduce some of the persistent racial gaps in educational attainment. At the same time, when schools became diverse as desegregation took place, stratification within schools occurred, leading to inequality within diverse schools. Thus, this article…
Race and Place
The era of mass suburbanization in the mid-20th century led to “a metropolitan America composed of an urban core and essentially homogenous suburbs” (Hanlon, Vicino, & Short, 2006, p. 2129). Suburb
School Choice, Racial Segregation, and Poverty Concentration
This article examines how student movements between traditional public schools (TPSs) and charters—both brick and mortar and cyber—may be associated with both racial isolation and poverty concentration. Using student-level data from the universe of Pennsylvania public schools, this study builds upon previous research by specifically examining student transfers into charter schools, disaggregating findings by geography. We find that, on average, t…
Segregation by District Boundary Line
Boundary lines have long served as a mechanism to divide people, determining the quality of available resources, and ultimately, educational opportunity. In recent years, new school district boundaries have proliferated as local communities attempt to secede from larger school districts. In this study of Memphis-Shelby County, Tennessee, we extend prior research on school district fragmentation and consolidation by examining the largest American …
Assessing Segregation Under a New Generation of Controlled Choice Policies
Student assignment policies (SAPs) in K–12 schools can either reproduce or help ameliorate existing inequality. Some districts are trying to maintain voluntarily adopted integration policies despite the Supreme Court’s recent 2007 decision in Parents Involved, which prohibited most race-conscious school choice policies that were effective and popular ways of accomplishing integration. While alternative policies with minimal or no use of race are …
The End of Consensus
At a time in which school enrollment is racially diverse yet neighborhoods remain segregated and there are increased legal restrictions on integration efforts, understanding under what conditions school diversity efforts are successful and retain popular support takes on renewed importance. Wake County is a unique case of a Southern school system that was never under court-ordered desegregation, yet the school board and community for years suppor…
Preferences, Proximity, and Controlled Choice
This study provides evidence studying one diverse, countywide district’s integration efforts utilizing school choice and parental preferences. The findings illustrate substantial differences about the way in which the district’s student assignment policy affects students. In particular, this choice-based integration policy with a weak geographic preference still advantages those who choose their nearest schools as well as white students and those…
The Disintegration of Memphis-Shelby County, Tennessee
In this qualitative case study, we explore the political impulses behind suburban secession from the 2013 Memphis-Shelby County merger, the largest school district consolidation in recent history. Decades removed from the Civil Rights Movement, during a period of stark inequality, colorblind law and policymaking, and a diminished understanding of education as a societal benefit, the central suburban rationale for secession, local control, carries…
School and Residential Segregation in School Districts with Voluntary Integration Policies
Since the Supreme Court’s 2007 Parents Involved decision, school districts have been pursuing integration in more legally and politically charged environments. The retreat of the federal government in the racial integration of schools is well documented, but less understood is what local school districts are doing to fill that void. This study documents the districts in the United States that are engaged in voluntary integration. We measure the r…
A Comprehensive and Practical Approach to Policy Guidance
As the federal entity in charge of enforcing civil rights law, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) plays a critical role in addressing the vast inequities that exist in U.S. education. Through an analysis of the policy guidance OCR issued for a number of areas during the Obama administration, we illustrate the agency’s comprehensive and practical approach to helping ensure that young people from different backgrounds …
Student Assignment Policies and Racial and Income Segregation of Schools, School Attendance Zones, and Neighborhoods
Purpose: This article examines the relationship between educational and residential segregation in three school districts with differing approaches to student assignment. Racial and income segregation within school districts is often only examined at the school level, even as school patterns are often related to residential and attendance zone segregation depending on integration policies aimed at decoupling these relationships. Research Method/A…
Sociology (26 works) · Political science (24 works) · School Choice and Performance (24 works) · Law (17 works) · Public Administration (15 works) · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies (14 works) · Economic growth (12 works) · Geography (12 works) · Politics (12 works) · Law (11 works)