Segregation Between White And Non-White Students On The Rise Within Metropolitan School Districts

August 21, 2000

University Park, Pa. -- With falling White student enrollment shares in U.S. metropolitan public schools, segregation between White and minority students is on the rise, a Penn State researcher says.

"School segregation between Whites and non-Whites -- presumably ended by federal legislation and court rulings in the Sixties -- is making a noticeable comeback, primarily due to residential housing patterns and population shifts from urban to suburban school districts. In some cities, the U.S. Supreme Court has authorized a return to segregated neighborhood schools. This resegregation trend may require a return to desegregation initiatives that two decades ago were thought unnecessary," says Dr. Sean F. Reardon, assistant professor of educational theory and policy and sociology.

"Our data for the school years 1989-95 show declining levels of segregation among various groups of minority students (Black, Hispanic and Asian). But they do show increasing levels of segregation between White students and all other minority students," Reardon notes.

The study of 217 U.S. metropolitan areas by Reardon and fellow researchers makes clear that the most rapid changes in racial and ethnic diversity are occurring in metropolitan areas.

"Although Black, Hispanic and Asian students comprised only 37 percent of the total enrollment in metropolitan areas in 1989, minority enrollment growth accounted for four-fifths of the total metro area enrollment growth between 1989-95," Reardon says.

"White public school enrollment grew by less than 4 percent over this period, while the total combined Black, Hispanic and Asian student enrollment rose by 23 percent. Minority enrollment growth occurred equally in city and suburban schools, but increases in White enrollment growth were due entirely to suburban growth; in fact, White enrollment in urban schools actually declined between 1989 and 1995."

Eighty percent of multi-racial public school segregation in the 217 metropolitan areas, both within districts and between districts, could be traced to segregation between Whites and various non-Whites. Only 20 percent was due to segregation among Blacks, Hispanics and Asians.

"Traditional within-district segregation remedies can affect only a third of the total segregation in metropolitan areas," Reardon notes. "The remaining two-thirds of segregation is due to between-district segregation resulting largely from residential patterns. These patterns must be addressed through policies aimed at promoting equal access to housing markets, particularly in the suburbs, where between-district residential segregation is increasing most rapidly."

Between-district desegregation plans were largely frustrated by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1974 Milliken vs. Bradley decision, which limited the ability of the courts to mandate between-district school desegregation. The time may have come for the highest court to reconsider that decision, according to the Penn State researcher.

Reardon, John T. Yun, a doctoral student in education at Harvard University, and Dr. Tamela McNulty Eitle, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Miami-Coral Gables are authors of "The Changing Structure of School Segregation: Measurement and Evidence of Multi-Racial Metropolitan Area School Segregation, 1989-1995," published in the August issue of the journal Demography.

They measured segregation by comparing the level of multi-racial and multi-ethnic diversity in individual schools with the diversity of their metropolitan area school enrollment. A district was considered completely segregated if each of its schools was monoracial, with no student attending with any member of another racial group. A metropolitan area where the level of diversity in each school matched that of the entire district was considered thoroughly unsegregated.

Funding came from the Spencer Foundation Small Grants Program and the Harvard Children's Initiative Postdoctoral Fellowship in Evaluating Children's Programs.

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Contacts:

Paul Blaum (814) 865-9481 (o)

Vicki Fong (814) 865-9481 (o)/ (814) 238-1221 (h)

EDITORS: Dr. Reardon is at (814) 865-2584 or at by email.