Listen In: Zoning’s Impact on Seattle Schools

Recently, Sightline senior research associate Margaret Morales joined KEXP’s Diane Horn to discuss her research into how Seattle’s zoning patterns exacerbate structural segregation in the city’s schools. Top findings from Margaret’s research include:

• Single-family zoning restricts fully 72 percent of the land in the attendance areas around Seattle’s 13 top-rated, non-option, public elementary schools.
• Home prices and even rents in these attendance areas were 20 percent higher than the entire city average.
• Household income in these attendance areas averaged 25 percent higher than the city as a whole, too.
• Children at these top schools are not representative of the Seattle student body as a whole: they are overwhelmingly white, not poor, and native English speakers.

Hear the full interview online, and see Margaret’s article about the issue here.