Local and State Leaders Must Step Up with Cross-Sector, Collaborative Solutions Amid National Rollback of Policies and Programs to Reduce Inequities

Contact:
Patrick St. John, psj@schottfoundation.org
Linda Zhang, lzhang@mrss.com

Today, the Schott Foundation for Public Education released its 2025 Loving Cities Index, which provides a comprehensive analysis of the policies and practices that drive racial and economic opportunity gaps for children across America. The report comes at a national moment: more than three months into a second Trump administration marked by the rollback of funding and support for policies and programs to reduce inequities. The Loving Cities Index highlights the urgent need for state and local leaders to step up to build and sustain loving systems. In a moment of budget cuts and uncertainty, communities can choose investment and support. In a moment of hate and neglect, communities can choose love.

Rather than solely focusing on educational outcomes, the Index expands its scope to include indicators like healthy food, affordable housing, and public transportation, showing the underlying connection between these supports and student success. These indicators have been shown to play important roles in the quality of life and life expectancy that children can expect as they grow into adults.

The Loving Cities Index also provides a framework for local leaders to dismantle and replace those systems with policies that create loving cities, supporting people from birth and providing an opportunity to learn and thrive. Through the Index, the Schott Foundation hopes to inspire organizers, advocates, funders, and service providers to come together to build loving systems that close opportunity gaps for children that result from racial and economic disparities.

The 2025 Loving Cities Index profiles 15 cities with large populations of low-income students and students of color, quantifying major gaps in the level of support being delivered to students. The cities include Birmingham, AL; Boston, MA; Houston, TX; Las Vegas, NV; Memphis, TN; New Orleans, LA; Pittsburgh, PA; Phoenix, AZ; Raleigh, NC; Reno, NV; Richmond, VA; Sacramento, CA; San Diego, CA; Tulsa, OK; and Wilmington, DE.

“Since 2018, the Schott Foundation’s Loving Cities Index has asked the question: do our communities love our children? The answer is more than a collation of data points, it’s a call to action,” said Dr. John H. Jackson, President & CEO of the Schott Foundation for Public Education. “In this pivotal moment in our nation’s history, we must remind ourselves of the countless ways we can make a difference in the cities and towns in which we live. The Loving Cities Index offers a roadmap for funders, policymakers, advocates, and those who feel motivated to get involved for the first time.”

The Index evaluates these cities across 25 indicators in four categories:

• CARE: Health resources and physical environment that foster physical and mental development.
• STABILITY: Community infrastructure supports and policies that foster physical and financial security and civic participation.
• COMMITMENT: School policies and practices that foster the unique potential of each student.
• CAPACITY: Financial policies and practices that foster expertise and resources to meet the needs of all children.

Cities were awarded one of five medal designations (Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum) based on their average score across supports measured for all indicators, which represents their individual progress toward achieving the standard of a loving city. Each city profile lays out what can be done to increase their score by further strengthening their care, stability, commitment, and capacity.

Overall, the Index found that cities that show strength across all four categories share strong access to early childhood education and youth health insurance coverage, and employ experienced teachers in schools. Opportunities remain to improve environmental health, implementation of restorative school discipline practices, access to rigorous coursework, and housing affordability. Boston, San Diego, and Pittsburgh were found to have particularly strong policies and supports. While Boston and San Diego are the first cities in the Index’s history to receive Gold and Silver medals, respectively, local advocates are clear that there is still much to be done.

Meanwhile, cities facing challenges across multiple categories continue to shoulder the harms of historical segregation and disinvestment, tend to be located in the South and lower Midwest, have lower revenue bases from tax systems or other fiscal constraints, and are prone to natural disasters. But, as the report shows, these cities also have tremendous opportunities to make real improvements to their residents’ lives by building more loving systems.

“The Loving Cities Index shows Boston is a city that has made important progress in improving the lives of children and families,” said Leon Smith, Executive Director of Citizens for Juvenile Justice. “But winning better policies is just the first step. Making sure our city implements them fully is an ongoing task that requires the active work of organizers and advocates, rooted in our schools, neighborhoods, and communities.”

“The Loving Cities Index shows the concrete ways Pittsburgh needs to improve to truly love its children,” said Moira Kaleida, National Coalition Director of the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools and a former school board member in Pittsburgh. “These issues are all connected. For example, almost all our high school students rely on public transit to get to and from school. We can’t say we’re investing in our children if we’re cutting funding from bus and rail service.”

The Loving Cities Index underscores the need for cross-sector solutions to address cross-sector challenges. The in-depth data analysis also emphasizes the need for open, transparent, and up-to-date data, and calls on social movements, nonprofit and philanthropic initiatives, and the public sector to improve data collection across the indicators that the Index examines.

For more information, please visit lovingcities.org.

About the Schott Foundation

The Schott Foundation for Public Education is a national public fund serving as a bridge between philanthropic partners and advocates to build movements to provide all students an opportunity to learn. Schott has an unwavering commitment to equity and justice that guides its mission to develop and strengthen a broad-based and representative movement to drive change in education systems, policies and practices to achieve fully resourced, high-quality Pre-K–12 public education for all children. www.schottfoundation.org