Download all figures Little is known about the influence of school choice p rograms on race and economic segregation in p ublic schools. Studies of housing segregation

Scholars have debated whether students' enrollment in private schools changes levels of racial segregation across urban school districts. The authors examine this issue by comparing the actual racial composition of schools with the racial composition of school-aged children living in the corresponding attendance areas. They do so by linking maps of school attendance boundaries with 2000 census data, the Common Core of Data, and the Private School Survey for the 22 largest U.S. school districts. The results show that public schools would be less racially segregated if all children living in a school district attended their neighborhood schools. In addition, private, magnet, and charter schools contribute to overall racial segregation within many school districts. The effects are particularly striking for segregation between white and Hispanic children. Finally, a few school districts with desegregation policies have succeeded in reducing racial segregation. The analyses contribute to debates regarding recent proposals to eliminate desegregation programs while simultaneously expanding "free-market" educational reforms that promote students' mobility across public, private, and charter schools.

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We examine whether student enrollment in nonneighborhood schools changes levels of racial segregation in public schools across urban school districts by comparing the racial composition of schools and their corresponding attendance area. This comparison was made possible by using geographic information systems (GIS) to link maps of elementary, middle, and high school attendance boundaries with 2000 census data, the Common Core of Data, and the Private School Survey for the 22 largest school districts. Results show that public schools would be less racially segregated if all children living in a school district attended their local, neighborhood schools. Similarly, findings reveal that private, magnet, and charter schools contribute to overall racial segregation within most school districts. Finally, while segregation levels in school catchment areas become lower from elementary to middle to high schools, the difference in segregation between catchment areas and the schools that serve them remains constant across all levels. For the past several decades scholars and educational policy makers have debated the extent to which the enrollment of children in private, charter, and magnet schools affects racial segregation in traditional neighborhood public schools. While researchers investigating residential racial segregation consistently find that race influences neighborhood choice (

This research investigates if and how much the shapes of school attendance zones contribute to racial segregation in schools. We find that the typical school attendance zone is relatively compact and resembles a square-like shape. Compact zones typically draw children from local residential areas, and since local areas are often racially homogeneous, this suggests that high levels of racial segregation in the largest school districts are largely structured by existing residential segregation. Still, this study finds that the United States contains some attendance zones with highly irregular shapes—some of which are as irregular as the most irregular Congressional District. Although relatively rare, attendance zones that are highly irregular in shape almost always contain racially diverse student populations. This racial diversity contributes to racial integration within school districts. These findings contradict recent theoretical and empirical scholarship arguing that irregularly shaped zones contribute to racial segregation in schools. Our findings suggest that most racial segregation in school attendance zones is driven by large-scale segregation across residential areas rather than a widespread practice among school districts to exacerbate racial segregation by delineating irregularly shaped attendance zones.

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