School officials said they are currently working to handle the influx of new students coming from the Villages of Patterson development under construction. School officials and community members and school officials worry that the schools won’t be able to handle another wave of large-scale development without a mitigation agreement.

Credit: Emma Gallegos/EdSource

Education and housing are often inextricably linked, but policy decisions made in the two sectors are generally isolated, sometimes shaped and enacted without considering how a housing policy might impact on education and vice versa.

Meghan Gallagher’s research bridges the two, focusing on housing and educational collaborations that support student academic achievement. Some of the her last work as a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research organization focused on public policy, he offers school officials and housing developers ideas on how to collaborate to desegregate schools by desegregating neighborhoods.

Gallagher has, too co-authored a report who compiled a list of key housing characteristics that impact on children’s educational outcomes:

• The quality of the home
• Housing affordability
• Casing stability
• Neighborhood quality
• Homes that create wealth

In this Q&A, Gallagher details why these housing characteristics matter in a child’s education and the partnerships that can help children have a fair chance at school success. The interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

How does housing policy influence children’s educational outcomes?
It is very important when trying to understand the influence that housing has on children’s educational outcomes that (we look at) its unique contribution.

You could have families with the same income levels, (but) one is in a high-quality home and one is in a low-quality home. A low-quality home can affect a child’s health, ability to sleep and feel safe. And so, you could have a very different outcome for that child if they’re in a lower-quality home.

You have outlined five characteristics of housing that have an impact on children’s educational outcomes. Why are those five characteristics so important?
These five characteristics have been studied a fair amount in the housing policy literature. We haven’t done all the original research that went into these findings, we’ve just put them together in one place. There may be aspects of housing that have not been historically measured that could also have an influence on education.

We know that low-quality housing—housing that has mold or electrical problems—is associated with lower kindergarten readiness scores. That causal relationship has been established. The relationship between spending too much on rent is linked to increased behavioral problems. Housing instability, and I would really put homelessness and housing insecurity in the housing instability bucket, really affects school stability and then has an effect on math and reading scores. We know that successful home ownership—that is, ownership that allows families to build equity—increases the likelihood of going to college. We also know that neighborhood contexts such as violence can disrupt school progress and prevent children from succeeding in school.

So there is evidence linking each of these housing conditions to a variety of aspects of children’s well-being and educational outcomes.

One of the things we haven’t done a very good job of is which of these aspects of housing matter the most or have the most influence. If we have a million dollars, what would we want to put that million dollars toward to improve educational outcomes? I don’t think we have enough evidence at this point to know exactly what the right path would be for that.

Do all five characteristics need to be present for children to have the best possible educational outcomes?
There’s not enough data right now for us to understand which of the five needs to be in place or what the likelihood of success is if you have one or two or three or four of them in place.

This is an area where we continue to need more understanding, more evidence, but I don’t think we can wait to make policy decisions until we have all that evidence.

Is the lack of sufficient research one result of the disconnect between housing policy and education?
Absolute. I think the sectors are so siled that many of the huge data collection investments that have taken place at HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) or the U.S. Department of Education have not had data elements that capture aspects of the other sector.

When we look at housing data in housing policy, there hasn’t been really detailed data collected about the children in the family – what schools they attend and how they are doing – that could allow the data to be linked, and the same in the world of education.

We face a lot of challenges in privacy research, where just because you can connect data, should you? Is this what program participants agreed to when they decided to enroll their children in public school or when they decided to enroll in a housing subsidy program? In many cases, the answer is no.

Some of the best data is really connected at the local level, where there are local policy makers working with local agencies that have asked for permission and connecting data to sort of fine-tuning programs on the ground.

How do we get to a point where we have the information we need to ensure school success for all children?
It has to happen on many levels. The federal government needs to encourage the Department of Ed and HUD to collaborate and support or really encourage collaboration in their discretionary grant programs. I really see the feds having an opportunity to really lead and support this kind of work.

But I also think that there are so many local organizations that lead. I think a lot of the case studies I’ve done can help illustrate how flexibility and collaboration can really translate into a set of programs or practices that support children’s education and stable, high-quality housing .

I know that philanthropy really supports a lot of exploration around sector alignment.

I feel really hopeful about this kind of broader view of how we create policy that thinks about how multiple systems can influence how well a child does. But I also think it’s not like there’s just all these housing that’s sitting there and the kids aren’t living in it. A big part of that work is making sure there’s still a housing production pipeline developing housing to make sure there’s enough housing at different price points so that everyone has the opportunity to live where and -would like to live.