Rick Kahlenberg on income integration

Spent a fascinating 90 minutes with Rick Kahlenberg at the Century Foundation in NYC. Rick is America’s leading voice on the importance of income integration in schools as a means of improving academic performance and lifting kids out of poverty.

Very encouraging that 80 school districts in America have now adopted income integration as a fundamental goal in locating magnet programs and developing school boundaries. Even with great teachers, schools made up exclusively of poor kids are almost certain to perform badly while mixed income schools almost always perform at a much higher level.

Certainly instructive for Hamilton as we come to terms with the destructive effects of concentrated poverty on health and educational outcomes.