Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2025
This chapter examines how linking school assignment to students’ residential addresses via geographic attendance boundaries drives inequities in public education. Because “perceived” (but not actual) school quality is capitalized into home values, property value concerns encourage segregation and exclusion, a phenomenon I describe as “education NIMBYism.” I argue that the overrepresentation of homeowners in local school board elections creates problematic political incentives for office holders, in contrast with Fischel’s “homevoter hypothesis” predicting that the political influence of homeowners makes government work better and more efficiently. I also show how the capitalization of school quality into home values can create unintended consequences and offset efforts to improve the lowest-performing schools.
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