Tiffany Flax is a former New Jersey State Policy Lab summer intern and an undergraduate student pursuing a double major in Political Science and English at Rutgers University.
Segregation in public schools, specifically along racial and economic lines, continues to impact the educational outcomes for countless students. Importantly, racial and economic segregation of schools is of particular interest to policymakers largely because school integration has demonstrated positive effects.[1] Notably, decades of research point to gaps in academic and social outcomes associated with racial and economic segregation.
A 2023 study by the Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies found that fewer than 30 percent of students in racially and economically segregated schools met New Jersey state standards for student learning in the 2018-2019 school year. Research has also indicated that school segregation restricts opportunities for cross-group friendships, which are in turn linked to reducing prejudice and boosting empathy. In recognition of this research, policymakers have grappled with how best to address racial and socioeconomic integration while continuing to improve overall student outcomes across all school districts.
One widely discussed strategy is school choice. These programs offer families the option to send their children to schools outside their assigned school or entire school district, allowing them to relocate to other public, charter, magnet, or private schools. School choice proponents suggest that school choice can counter existing racial and economic homogeneity by allowing families to enroll in schools outside their district, while critics argue that school voucher programs may siphon funding from already struggling public schools and further exacerbate existing academic challenges.
New Jersey currently operates an inter-district public school choice program with 119 of the state’s 590 districts participating. However, the program is currently frozen, barring new districts from joining. Moreover, very few school-choice options are available in highly segregated counties where many schools have student populations that are over 90 percent non-White and the majority low-income.
Beyond school choice, other policies that have been considered to address school segregation include district consolidation and redrawing school district boundaries. District consolidation merges neighboring districts into a single, unified district. While often pursued for financial reasons, research suggests it can also reduce segregation. A notable example is the 1973 merger of Morristown and Morris Township, which created a district that remains racially and economically integrated to this day, with more than 90 percent of students pursuing higher education. A 2024 study using redistricting algorithms found that merging Plainfield and Scotch Plains-Fanwood could cut school segregation in those communities by nearly 50 percent.
Redrawing school district boundaries – shifting the geographic lines that define districts – offers another potential solution. The same 2024 study found that boundary adjustments in Cape May, Salem, and Warren counties could significantly reduce existing school segregation. However, redrawing school district boundaries can face strong political resistance, and in some cases, worsen racial isolation when communities push back against changes.
A study released this year proposes Redistricting with Choice (RWC), which combines boundary changes with school choice. Tested in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County schools in North Carolina, this study found that RWC could reduce segregation by 23 percent. That being said, its results highlighted the unpredictability of school-choice models and have raised questions regarding how reliable RWC could be for vastly different districts across the country.
While school segregation remains a pervasive issue on a broad scale, it is unclear if there is a single strategy that will be able to effectively address this problem. New Jersey policymakers should consider the state’s varied districts, demographics, and political realities in crafting solutions. For some communities, school choice expansion may offer new opportunities; for others, consolidation or boundary adjustments could be more effective. Meaningful progress may likely require a combination of strategies tailored to the unique challenges across New Jersey’s educational landscape.
References:
Biryukov, Nikita. 2025. “NJ Governor Hopefuls Split on Forcing School Districts to Merge • New Jersey Monitor.” New Jersey Monitor. September 23, 2025. https://newjerseymonitor.com/2025/09/23/nj-governor-hopefuls-split-on-compulsory-school-district-consolidation/.
Campbell V. & Payne C.2023. Schooling in New Jersey: The Distribution of Opportunities to Learn by Race, Ethnicity, and Class. Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies. https://rutgers.app.box.com/s/wyzbzyrt42jabifa0fp7vqw9fg0rpmjb
Can Interdistrict School Choice Remedy School Segregation? (n.d.). Retrieved August 5, 2025, from https://newjerseypolicyinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/NJPI-Can-Interdistrict-School-Choice-Remedy-School-Segregation.pdf
Castro, A. J., Siegel-Hawley, G., Bridges, K., & Williams, S. E. (2022). Narratives of Race in School Rezoning: How the Politics of Whiteness Shape Belonging, Leadership Decisions, and School Attendance Boundaries. AERA Open, 8, 23328584221091274. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584221091274
Davies, K., Tropp, L. R., Aron, A., Pettigrew, T. F., & Wright, S. C. 2011. Cross-group friendships and intergroup attitudes: A meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15(4), 332–351. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868311411103
Guan, H., Gillani, N., Simko, T., Mangat, J., & Hentenryck, P. V. (2025). Contextual Stochastic Optimization for School Desegregation Policymaking. Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 39(27), Article 27. https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v39i27.35020
Interdistrict Public School Choice Program. (2021). Nj.gov. https://www.nj.gov/education/choice/
Jones McGowan, E. J. (2011). A case study of Dwight Morrow High School and the Academies at Englewood: An examination of school desegregation policy from a critical race perspective. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
LoPresti, Anthony J. (2021) “Blurring the Lines: How Consolidating School Districts Can Combat New Jersey’s Public‐School Segregation Problem,” Seton Hall Journal of Legislation and Public Policy: Vol. 45: Iss. 1, Article 8.
Simko, T. (2024). School desegregation by redrawing district boundaries. Scientific Reports (Nature Publisher Group), 14(1), 22097. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-71578-x
Tractenberg, P. L., & Coughlan, R. (2018). The New Promise of School Integration and the Old Problem of Extreme Segregation: An Action Plan for New Jersey ti Address Both. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.11283.73768
What is School Choice? – EdChoice. (2025). EdChoice. https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice/
Footnote:
[1] School segregation refers to the concentration of students from similar racial, ethnic or socioeconomic backgrounds into specific schools based largely on where they live. This form of segregation is driven by residential patterns. … Historical practices like redlining contributed to these patterns.