Drawn Into Policy: A Systematic Review of School Rezoning Rationales, Processes, and Outcomes

Abstract

School rezoning is the process of drawing and redrawing school attendance boundaries (SABs). However, studies explicitly focused on changing SABs through rezoning or other mechanisms are spread across multiple bodies of literature. Rezoning is also a politically contentious issue governed by local school boards, tying it to conceptual work on the politics of education. This systematic literature review on school rezoning brings together fragmented but related bodies of work to develop a comprehensive understanding of the rationales for school rezoning, the strategies and processes underlying it, and its associated outcomes. Grounded in a contested legal landscape, findings indicate that rezoning involves overlapping and interacting policy issues as well as multiple stakeholders that complicate the theory of action. Limitations in prevailing student assignment plans influence the degree to which rezoning can disrupt racial and socioeconomic segregation in schools. This review highlights the need to reconceptualize rezoning as a transformative tool, rather than one that replicates (or worsens) systems of educational inequity.