Within-District Racial Segregation and the Elusiveness of White Student Return to Urban Public Schools

Abstract

Recent research has determined that racial segregation within school districts has decreased, on average, over the past two decades, even as segregation between school districts has persisted. Although case studies have documented White families’ return to urban public schools, with potential implications for segregation patterns, quantitative data on the scope of this trend are lacking. In this article, I examine enrollment and segregation within 97 urban districts from 1990 through 2010. The trend of White return to urban schools is quite limited; in most cities, White enrollment declines have persisted. Meanwhile, urban school segregation has increased modestly in recent decades.