About the Interactive Map

The interactive map and data explorer offer a national view of the school district landscape. With this tool, users—particularly state and local advocates, policymakers, and journalists—can better understand the nature of segregation and inequity in and around America’s school districts. How does the poverty rate or racial composition of your school district compare with those around it? Do school district boundaries create especially deep divisions in your area? Would widening or changing an existing border give students in your community access to more funding? Would it allow for more diverse schools?

The map displays America’s public-school districts in two views. In one, districts are shaded by the percentage of students of color enrolled, while in the other, they are shaded by their local school-aged poverty rates. Each view highlights the 100 most segregating school district borders in the country by the selected measure. Clicking on a particular school district or border reveals key data points about student demographics, interdistrict segregation, and school funding.

As users zoom or navigate through the map, the ranked list on the side of the screen automatically identifies the most segregating borders currently visible. The tool also offers options to filter districts by state or by student demographics, or to select a specific community or region and view key statistics about the school districts and district borders in that area.