How The Post’s analysis compares to other studies of school segregation - The Washington Post

How The Post’s analysis compares to other studies of school segregation - The Washington Post

How The Post’s analysis compares to other studies of school segregation

The Washington Post’s analysis of U.S. public schools finds an increase in students attending integrated schools. Some other studies appear to find the opposite. Why the difference?

The Post analysis differed from others chiefly with its focus on integration in school districts throughout the country. It included rural, majority-white school systems, as well as big cities where most students are black or Hispanic. It found many of the newly integrated districts used to be overwhelmingly white. In most cases, whites remain in the majority.

The Post focused on the student body within school districts, whereas other studies focus on students’ presence on a metro or statewide basis. The Post analysis measured integration only for districts that had enough racial diversity to allow for integration — what we call diverse districts.

In addition, this analysis uses a measure of segregation that accounts for demographic change in each school system, whereas others do not.

How the nation’s growing racial diversity is changing our schools

Q: Why was it important to look outside of big cities? Aren’t most students in large metro areas?

A: Schools in most big city districts, and many big suburbs, have long been segregated. The Post analysis finds that segregation often persists. But it also found that a surge of Latinos moving into smaller communities has translated into a big jump in the number of diverse school districts, and it found that those newly diverse districts were far more integrated than the big urban districts. These newly diverse districts are typically small on their own, but they add up to millions more children being educated in integrated schools than in 1995, the first year for which national data is available. CONTINUE READING: How The Post’s analysis compares to other studies of school segregation - The Washington Post