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Publications [#13162] of Charles T. Clotfelter
Journal Articles
- "Public School Segregation in Metropolitan Areas," C. Clotfelter, Land Economics 75 (November, 1999): 487-504.
(last updated on 2006/12/04)Abstract:
This paper presents measures of segregation for metropolitan areas using the Department of Education's Common Core of Data, a data set covering virtually all public schools. It shows that, not only are urban areas very segregated, most of that segregation is due to racial disparities between districts rather than segregative patterns within districts. Metropolitan areas in the South and West tend to have large districts,and thus feature less fragmentation by school district. This regional difference in fragmentation allows for the high degree of residence-based segregation that is evident in metropolitan area school segregation. Segregation at the metropolitan level appears to vary systematically with size, racial mix, and region. Because larger metropolitan areastend to have more jurisdictions and exhibit greater differences in racial composition among jurisdictions, measured segregation rises with size,as measured by school enrollment. Larger districts are associatedwith less segregation, however, since they allow the possibility of mixingstudents from diverse neighborhoods. These aspects of size held constant,metropolitan areas with higher concentrations of blacks, and to a lesserextent Hispanics, exhibit greater segregation. And, once these factorsare accounted for, metropolitan area segregation remains lowest in theSouth. At the district level, segregation is greatest in the largest districts, presumably where achieving racial balance is logistically most difficult. Within-district segregation is also strongly affected by the percentage of students who are black, suggesting that school authorities tend to insulate whites from interracial contact where minority presence is greatest. Finally, districts in the South exhibit higher rates of segregation, other things equal, a finding that stands in contrast to previous regional comparisons in overall segregation.