Inequality is Entrenched in Santa Monica, and School Attendance Areas Need to be Redrawn if We Want That to Change
Santa Monica is an extremely affluent city, but one plagued by huge income and wealth inequality among its residents. These inequalities have entrenched themselves geographically, such that certain areas of the city, in particular the Pico Neighborhood, are less well-off than others. Current elementary school “attendance” areas, zones that determine which schools children can attend, are reinforcing these geographic inequalities. Education can be a great equalizing factor –– but in our city the opposite is often true. In order to harness the true equalizing power of education, our city desperately needs new school attendance areas.
A long history of redlining and systemic racism has led Santa Monica to be segregated amongst race and income. The southern part of Santa Monica has historically been home to people of color –– in the Pico Neighborhood in particular, 80% percent of people identify as non-White. The southern part of Santa Monica has a much higher population of low-income residents than the northern part of Santa Monica, which is more than 80% White.
Current attendance areas run largely along lines going west to east, so that children living in the north of Santa Monica go to schools in their northern neighborhoods, and vice versa for the south of Santa Monica. This has the effect of grouping together children from affluent neighborhoods to the north and grouping together children from less affluent neighborhoods to the south.
Such grouping isolates the communities within their neighborhoods and socioeconomic classes. Not only does this reinforce the existing segregation, it also has widens the inequality in the education that children from different neighborhoods are getting. PTA’s, for instance, usually fundraise for individual schools only, affecting the quality of education of some schools relative to others. The area north of Montana Avenue scored school proficiency index numbers between 94 and 99 (the highest bracket), yet the southern half only scored school proficiency index numbers lower than 93, with many areas scoring as low as 48.
Moreover, research has shown that cross-class relationships are key to a high degree of income mobility later in life. Initiatives that improve economic mobility within the city are greatly needed to alleviate the income inequality, and Santa Monica has a golden opportunity to promote cross-class relationships. Instead, the attendance areas act as barriers between classes.
While attendance areas are not an issue in regards to Santa Monica High School, which takes in all Santa Monica residents, early differences in the quality of education can lead to long lasting differences in success at school. As a result the effects of inequality between elementary school education play out in high school and beyond.
There is no easy solution to all this –– income and wealth inequality can’t be wiped out overnight, and quality of education is not always linked to the affluence of its specific neighborhood. But an easy place for the city to start is to make new attendance areas. Broadly speaking, the zones should be redrawn north to south, so that each attendance area has a student body that is as diverse in terms of socioeconomic background as possible. This should have an overall equalizing effect on the PTAs of all 7 of Santa Monica’s elementary schools, while encouraging cross-class relationships –– not only between the students but in the community as a whole.
The income inequality between people of color and White people can in part be traced back to when the I-10 freeway was built in Santa Monica in the early sixties, and was purposely directed straight through the Pico Neighborhood. Less than two blocks away, abandoned or unused land stood available. The devastation of such destruction reached beyond loss of homeownership: there was loss of businesses, jobs, and upward mobility that came with the stability of homeownership. Throughout the 20th century, racist practices such as redlining were perpetrated in Santa Monica, and the city still grapples with the effects today. Education is only part of this legacy of systemic racism, but in the case of elementary schools attendance areas, it continues to reinforce and elongate the segregation started in the mid-20th century. We have a responsibility to right the wrongs of the past and act on the inequality that persists between our city’s different communities today.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press
