For many years, Derrell Bradford says, he never understood why his mother and grandmother used to gather at the kitchen table when he was a child, debating whose address they would lie about to get him access to a better public school.
It wasn’t until he began working in education policy later in life that he says he came to fully understand their predicament: For the majority of American families, the quality of their child’s school is tied irrevocably to the affluence of their neighborhood. And while affluent parents can move their families to a better school district if they’re unhappy with their current options, or enroll their child in private school, struggling families are left with few choices.
