Racial Disparities and Black Parents’ School Preferences: Evidence from a Survey Experiment - The Urban Review Nearly half of Black parents have access to public school choice, but choice may not provide equitable and supportive school environments. Qualitative research documents Black parents worries that majority-White schools with more resources and higher test scores may over-discipline, underestimate, and exclude their children. Yet large-scale studies rarely examine what Black families desire in potential schools, including how they navigate potential tradeoffs between high school quality and denigrating school racial climates. This survey experiment examines the extent to which test score gaps and suspension gaps between Black students and their non-Black peers deter Black parents from choosing schools with higher overall test scores and lower overall suspension rates. We randomly assign a large, national sample of Black parents (N = 1,677) to examine a school profile vignette where the school has overall high academic achievement and low suspensions rates but includes either one, both, or neither academic and discipline gaps to assess how test score and suspension disparities affect Black parents’ school preferences and perceptions. We find that racial disparities in student discipline and academic outcomes, on average, diminish Black families’ desires to enroll in high-achievement schools and their perceptions of student belonging. These findings align with qualitative research showing that well-resourced, high-achieving schools are less appealing to Black families when they marginalize Black students and that schools’ unequal punishment of Black students shapes Black parents’ evaluations of potential educational spaces.

New research by Todd Hall, Jeremy Prim, @drjae.bsky.social, and me:

Black families are 10 percentage points less likely to choose an otherwise high-quality school when it has large racial disparities in test scores and student discipline.

Read the paper: doi.org/10.1007/s112...

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This study highlights that inequality between students within a school not only affects those currently enrolled, but also shapes future enrollment decisions.

Addressing within-school disparities is essential—not just for equity today, but for who chooses these schools tomorrow.

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Racial Disparities and Black Parents’ School Preferences: Evidence from a Survey Experiment - The Urban Review Nearly half of Black parents have access to public school choice, but choice may not provide equitable and supportive school environments. Qualitative research documents Black parents worries that majority-White schools with more resources and higher test scores may over-discipline, underestimate, and exclude their children. Yet large-scale studies rarely examine what Black families desire in potential schools, including how they navigate potential tradeoffs between high school quality and denigrating school racial climates. This survey experiment examines the extent to which test score gaps and suspension gaps between Black students and their non-Black peers deter Black parents from choosing schools with higher overall test scores and lower overall suspension rates. We randomly assign a large, national sample of Black parents (N = 1,677) to examine a school profile vignette where the school has overall high academic achievement and low suspensions rates but includes either one, both, or neither academic and discipline gaps to assess how test score and suspension disparities affect Black parents’ school preferences and perceptions. We find that racial disparities in student discipline and academic outcomes, on average, diminish Black families’ desires to enroll in high-achievement schools and their perceptions of student belonging. These findings align with qualitative research showing that well-resourced, high-achieving schools are less appealing to Black families when they marginalize Black students and that schools’ unequal punishment of Black students shapes Black parents’ evaluations of potential educational spaces.

New research by Todd Hall, Jeremy Prim, @drjae.bsky.social, and me:

Black families are 10 percentage points less likely to choose an otherwise high-quality school when it has large racial disparities in test scores and student discipline.

Read the paper: doi.org/10.1007/s112...

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New Science Advances paper w/ Jennifer Candipan:

Racial change doesn’t just reshape neighborhoods, it reshapes school punishment. We show Black–White suspension disparities grow in places where Black populations are changing, especially in majority White, suburban, & rural areas.

School discipline disparities increase when neighborhood Black population changes Racial suspensions gaps grew from 2010 to 2018, especially in white neighborhoods and rural areas with shifting Black populations.

Many school discipline reforms aimed to reduce racial disparities, but we find they worked unevenly. Black–White gaps declined mainly in urban neighborhoods and persisted or grew elsewhere.

Check out the article here: doi.org/10.1126/scia...

New Science Advances paper w/ Jennifer Candipan:

Racial change doesn’t just reshape neighborhoods, it reshapes school punishment. We show Black–White suspension disparities grow in places where Black populations are changing, especially in majority White, suburban, & rural areas.

Its so much happening in the world, but is this still a space where I can share new research???!??

UT to consolidate gender and ethnic studies programs into one new department Affected departments include those that focus on African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American Studies, Women and Gender Studies and American Studies.

This is a travesty. African and African Diaspora Studies at UT Austin has been one of the best programs in the country. And for historical context, this is explicitly about reversing the gains of student movements in the 60s and 70s.

www.statesman.com/news/educati...

A photo of Texas A&M University’s logo

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M adopts policy requiring professors to get OK from school president to discuss certain race and gender issues.

The aggressive immigration raids we now see across the nation began 10 months ago in California's Central Valley. Their impact on children, families, and communities is an important & active area of research

I'm pleased my study of the initial raid's early impact on students is now out in @pnas.org

White Flight in Public Higher Education? Racial Avoidance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions - Laura T. Hamilton, Charlie Eaton, Simon Cheng, 2025 Latine college students in the United States face increasing isolation in universities designated as Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). We contend that this ...

📚New Work Wednesday!📚

In this study, Hamilton, L. et al. (2025) find that White students respond to the high concentration of Latine students at HSIs with “white flight,” contributing to racial segregation in higher ed.

For more information:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

#NewWorkWed

ED Reallocates MSI Funding to HBCUs, Tribal Colleges Some HBCU advocates say their colleges are more deserving of the money than other minority-serving institutions. Others have more mixed feelings.

Didn't make the article but key point is, what if I told you that there was legislation in the 1800s that gave millions of dollars to HBCUs? Then what if I said it was being done to ensure that other insts never had to integrate?

Now you can see what this is

www.insidehighered.com/news/institu...

Crowd Sourcing: What are your favorite books, articles, podcasts on race and education (broadly defined)?

“Without the impetus to go outside the box, I didn’t realize the box that I was in.” Patricia Hill Collins #asa2025

PHC on embodying academic excellence:

-Always be self-critical of your work
-Don’t give up on the questions(s) that motivate you
-Be experimental, engage in “intellectual care work”
-Stay on your own path.. don’t wait around for the topic or the method of the day. Be epistemologically free #ASA2025

Thank you so much @fooddatanerd.com ! Your sas training has been invaluable for my career from my time at UI to learning STATA in grad school. Truth is I still use sas for my survey experiments. I’m indebted.

These are great! Thanks

Crowd Sourcing: What are your favorite books, articles, podcasts on race and education (broadly defined)?

Inchoate thoughts from some reading:

Rich white dudes are ferocious about attacking on Black women’s material base — public sector employment — and cultural capital — online etc — right now because they think we radicalized white women

Thank you so much for sharing my new article!

Lifting the District Court’s injunction will unleash untold harm, delaying or denying educational opportunities and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual assault, and other civil rights violations without the federal resources Congress intended. The majority apparently deems it more important to free the Government from paying employees it had no right to fire than to avert these very real harms while the litigation continues. Equity does not support such an inequitable result. * * * The President must take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not set out to dismantle them. That basic rule undergirds our Constitution’s separation of powers. Yet today, the majority rewards clear defiance of that core principle with emergency relief. Because I cannot condone such abuse of our equitable authority, I respectfully dissent.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to move forward with the abolition of the Department of Education. It gives no explanation for its order. All three liberals dissent. www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...

From Sotomayor's dissent:

White parents, across income and political spectra, adhered to common racialized narratives about school safety.

#education #schoolchoice #racialbias
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New study with @bcmurray.bsky.social shows effect of school race on parents perceptions of multiple dimensions of safety.

White parents rate Black, Latine, & Asian schools as socioemotionally unsafe, Black & Latine schools as violent & disorderly, Black schools as biologically unsafe.

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With generous support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Spencer Foundation, we are pleased to be offering the Just Education Policy Institute for doctoral students interested in research to reduce racial inequality in education policy this fall. Applications are open, due June 30.

Federal judge orders release of Mahmoud Khalil from Ice detention Columbia graduate had been held for over three months over his activism against Israel’s war in Gaza

"A federal judge has ordered the release of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil from US immigration detention, where he has been held for more than three months over his activism against Israel’s war in Gaza." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

opened bluesky and had a 100 new followers yesterday...did I miss something? am i on some list?

Either way helllooo to my new community members.

Thanks for the share! And this paper looks really helpful as I think about my next school choice conjoint!

Thanks for sharing David!

Thank you for sharing and all of your support on this project! This would not have been possible without your data infrastructure through the Research Alliance on NYC Schools.

Parents prioritize multiple dimensions of safety in their school selections. And school racial composition shapes their beliefs about potential schools' safety.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...