Housing case could have impact on education

Recent discussion about the Fair Housing Act has centered on Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. the Inclusive Communities Project, which the Supreme Court heard last week, and whether the justices will gut the disparate-impact standard from the law.

There's no doubt that the Fair Housing Act has played a major role in addressing our nation's problem with housing discrimination - a problem that the government itself helped foster through racially discriminatory housing policies.

The significance of the disparate-impact standard and what its loss would mean for equal housing rights across the county is no doubt important to recognize.

But what's also crucial to understand is the fact that housing segregation doesn't just affect where minorities can live. One of the other ways it has affected communities across the country, especially in Philadelphia, is through the segregation of our schools.

Recent studies conducted by Brown University sociologist John Logan noted that the Philadelphia area has one of the widest gaps in the nation between black elementary schools and white grade schools when it comes to reading test scores. A similar gap exists between Hispanic and white schools in Philadelphia.

The fact that low-income and minority schools are failing in the Philadelphia area is not surprising. Recent public school closings - more than 30 in the past three years - have made this clear, with School District officials often citing budget cuts, half-empty classrooms, and failing performance assessments as reasons for closures.

What is surprising - or at least may be a novel concept worth discussing - is that closing low-performing schools isn't going to fix the problem. Why?

As Logan aptly indicates, the problem is segregation, and the way segregated neighborhoods have remained unchanged in Philadelphia since before the Fair Housing Act was passed.

What is the solution then? It's probably not a simple one, but it likely starts with recognizing that problems with our public school system flow directly from neighborhood conditions.

In particular, we have failed to equitably resource struggling communities. The reason that Philadelphia has failing schools isn't just low test scores. It's failing communities that have struggled due to a continuing pattern of racial segregation.

And government policies continue to ignore the issue. We see this particularly in Philadelphia, where schools have been dramatically underfunded by the state.

The result of the Inclusive Communities Project case isn't just going to affect where parents can house their families or how much lawyers will need to show to prove housing discrimination has occurred. The ruling is also going to affect our children, and it could determine whether they will have the right to the education they deserve.