The purported purpose of school choice policies is to increase students’ access to “good schools.” There is little discussion, however, of where those good schools are located, nor of the ways in which the distribution of good schools mirrors broader patterns of uneven development in the United States. Given that schools are neighborhood assets and that the distance which students travel to get to school affects their success, the locations of schools matter tremendously and are inextricable from questions of social and spatial justice. We introduce and argue for the explicit use of the term “school desert” as a way for scholars to understand and describe the spatial injustice of school closures and for activists to argue the importance of effective local schools. Spatial visualization and rendering of social problems is an invaluable strategy for effecting policy change. As cities move increasingly to a “de-spatialized” geography of schooling where catchment zones are less determinate of where a student attends school, it is important to consider where the desirable schools are and where they are not. A more nuanced visualization of school locations than neighborhood demographics offers a new lens through which to examine the (un)intended effects of school closures on students, communities, and development. Using Pennsylvania as a case study, we use a geographic information system (GIS) to evaluate the broader reverberations of school choice policies and determine who, demographically, has access to high-quality schools. In light of this research, we also propose an innovative analytic and methodology that describes the educational inequity which is caused by spatial relationships between students’ homes and high-quality schooling. Through the concept of a school desert we explore the (un)intended spatial implications of school closures. School deserts occur as a result of school choice policies that justify school closures. Closures and the location of good schools are geographically uneven, tempered by the federal and local policies that ensure income and racial segregation in US housing. Our analysis of Pennsylvania reveals the uneven distribution of access to good schools in the same way that mapping food deserts displays how market forces have failed to evenly distribute quality food. We find that areas with high-quality schools are significantly wealthier and whiter than school deserts, a conclusion which mirrors those concerning other low-quality neighborhood assets. School deserts as a methodology demonstrate that if students do not have geographic access to good schools, then school choice policies do not, in fact, offer choice.

中文翻译：

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学校荒漠：可视化附近学校的死亡

择校政策的目的是增加学生进入“好学校”的机会。但是，关于这些好学校的所在地，以及关于好学校的分布方式反映了美国更广泛的不均衡发展模式的讨论很少。鉴于学校是社区的资产，并且学生上学的路途会影响他们的成功，学校的位置极为重要，而且是社会和空间正义问题不可分割的。我们介绍并主张明确使用“学校荒漠”一词，作为学者理解和描述学校关闭的空间不公正性的一种方法，以及活动家认为有效的当地学校的重要性的一种方法。空间可视化和社会问题的呈现是影响政策变化的无价策略。随着城市越来越多地进入“去空间化”的学校地理环境，集水区对学生上学地点的影响越来越小，因此重要的是要考虑理想的学校在哪里，而不是在哪里。比邻里人口统计数据更细致入微的学校位置可视化提供了一个新的视角，通过它可以检查停课对学生，社区和发展的（意外）影响。以宾夕法尼亚州为例，我们使用地理信息系统（GIS）来评估学校选择政策的广泛影响，并确定在人口统计学上谁可以使用优质学校。根据这项研究，我们还提出了一种创新的分析方法，可以描述由于学生的住所与高质量的学校之间的空间关系而引起的教育不平等。通过学校沙漠的概念，我们探索了学校关闭的（非）预期的空间含义。学校荒废的产生是学校停课政策合理的结果。联邦和地方政策确保美国住房的收入和种族隔离，从而限制了学校的停课时间和良好的地理位置。我们对宾夕法尼亚州的分析揭示了获得优质学校的机会分布不均，就像绘制食物沙漠一样，显示出市场力量如何未能平均分配优质食物。我们发现，拥有优质学校的地区比学校的沙漠地区更加富裕和苍白，这一结论与那些涉及其他劣质社区资产的情况相吻合。作为一种方法论，学校荒漠表明，如果学生没有地理位置上的好学校，那么学校选择政策实际上就不会提供选择。