Despite steep enrollment declines in the state’s K-12 public schools, entrance into California’s top-performing public schools remains incredibly competitive due to restrictive district and attendance zone boundaries.
In the 1930s, the Home Owners Loan Corporation redlined neighborhoods in California, using residents’ characteristics, such as race, to vet homebuyers for federal aid housing loans, often labeling minority neighborhoods as “hazardous.” Although Congress outlawed housing redlining through laws passed in 1968, 1973, and 1977, many geographic school district and attendance zone boundaries still mirror racist neighborhood lines from the 1930s, limiting children’s education options today.
For example, Los Angeles’ Ivanhoe Elementary School’s attendance zone
