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In the suburbs of large metropolitan areas, white students are 47% of the enrollment. But segregation has spread beyond central cities. Historically, segregation has been discussed as a southern and urban issue, relevant to places like Little Rock, Arkansas, and Boston, Massachusetts. In 2016, more than half of Black students were in such segregated schools. Since the late 1960s, the Northeast has experienced a steady increase in the percentage of Black students enrolled in schools with fewer than 10% white students. In fact, despite a recent rise in segregation in the South, it remains one of the least segregated regions in the U.S., leading the rest of the country in school desegregation for African American students. I was one of many children in the South who attended desegregated schools during this time period. The percentage of Black students in intensely segregated schools in the South dropped dramatically until the late 1980s, down to 24%.
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Board of Education when the percentage was 100%, but the South still lagged far behind the rest of the U.S. In the late 1960s, more than three-quarters of Black students attended schools where less than 10% of students were white. The South was once the most segregated region in the U.S. These patterns of segregation differ by region of the country. The percentages of Black and Latino students in intensely segregated schools have risen since late 1980s, after the Reagan Justice Department stopped asking courts to implement busing as a remedy in desegregation cases. Most of these schools have a majority of low-income students, which a 2016 government report concluded harmed students’ educational opportunities. The average Black or Latino student also goes to a school with a relatively high share of students of their own race.Īdditionally, more than 40% of Black and Latino students attend intensely segregated schools, where at least 9 in 10 students are people of color. However, I’m encouraged by the fact that white isolation has decreased in recent years, as the public school enrollment has become more diverse. Children with more exposure to people of other races are less likely to stereotype and more likely to seek out diverse experiences as adults. Having limited cross-racial exposure, these students miss out on valuable benefits of such experiences. By this measure, white students are more segregated than any other group. White students also have only 31% of students who are of other races, on average, in their schools. This is considerably higher than white students’ national share of the enrollment. The typical white student attends a school that is 69% white. If a school were perfectly integrated, students’ exposure to students of other races would match the national racial composition of students.īut white students have lower exposure to students of other races than any other group of students. However, white students and students of color are unevenly distributed across schools, and these differences affect their experiences in schools and classrooms. Multiracial students – a group not even part of the official federal classification until 2008 – are also nearly 4%. In some states, Asian students are increasing. There are also 1 million more Black students since the civil rights era, or approximately 15% of students. Latino students continue to increase nationally and in every region of the country. However, white students are still the largest group of students at 48%. public schools no longer had a majority of any racial group.ĭespite an increase in the number of public school students since the late 1960s, there are almost 11 million fewer white children in public schools nearly 50 years later.
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In the last school year for which my group had data, 2016 to 2017, the U.S. I have been studying school segregation and desegregation for more than a decade and also assist communities in addressing segregation. In the civil rights era, nearly 80% of public school students were white, and African American students were the largest group among students of color. school segregation is higher than it has been in decades, even if there are no longer overt laws requiring racially segregated schools.
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Yet, despite years of government desegregation efforts and the proven benefits of integrated schools, our recently published research shows that U.S. Recent research illustrates that its positive impact on the educational attainment, lifetime earnings and health of African American families persists for multiple generations. Studies have shown that school desegregation has important benefits for students of all races.