The Effect of School Integration on Community Integration

Abstract

The evidence presented in this study of 113 school districts in the U.S. from 1964 or earlier to 1975–76 suggests that school desegregation has a disintegrative effect during implementation and an integrative effect in post-implementation years. Although there is white flight from school desegregation in the year of implementation, post-implementation year losses tend to be less than normal. Assessing flight over a five-year period indicates the total loss is reduced to zero or even a benefit in all but city school districts that are 35 percent black or greater. In these school districts, the most extensive plans involving white reassignments to formerly black schools still exhibit an additional white enrollment loss of almost 6 percent over the five-year period. Nevertheless, this is less than half the implementation year loss.

School desegregation is related to residential integration. Evidence from previous studies indicates that after school desegregation black parents often move into white neighborhoods to be near their child's new school assignment. The evidence presented here is nonconclusive but it suggests there is a reciprocal relationship between school integration and residential integration. School districts with more residential integration are more likely to reassign students for the purposes of school desegregation but this school desegregation may be related to subsequent residential integration.