Does School Integration Increase Racial Resource Equity? Evidence from United States Public Schools 1993-2012

Jim Saliba, University of Minnesota

Numerous studies, qualitative and quantitative, find persistent racial school resource inequities in the United States. Based on this association, researchers, pundits, and policymakers often assume that increasing school integration will reduce racial resource inequities. Few or no studies, however, investigate the relationship of changes in school racial composition with changes in school resources. Using a longitudinal data set of United States public schools from 1993 through 2012, I assess three explanations for the persistence of racial school resource inequities: stable segregation, selective change, and dynamic change. Stable segregation means that the racial composition of individual schools rarely changes substantially enough to place it in a significantly better-resourced or worse-resourced category of schools. Selective change refers to when significant changes in school racial composition mainly occur in schools that were already resourced similarly to the average for the school’s new racial composition. Dynamic change refers to when significant changes in school racial composition are followed by resource changes that result in the school’s resources becoming more similar to the average for the school’s new racial composition. In terms of White students moving into highly segregated non-White schools, I find evidence supporting both stable segregation and selective change, but no evidence supporting dynamic change. The proportion of White students increased substantially in less than one percent of highly segregated non-White schools during the period, and those schools on average were already as well resourced as schools with more White students. In terms of non-White students moving into schools with more substantial proportions of White students, I find selective change, less stable segregation, but again no evidence of dynamic change. Eighteen percent of these schools experienced a substantial increase in non-White students, but those schools on average were already less well resourced than schools whose racial composition did not change.

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 Presented in Session 106. The American State’s Retreat from Civil Rights