Progress toward desegregation in U.S. public schools is being steadily reversed, according to a study by researchers at the Graduate School of Education (GSE). The findings were presented at a conference in Atlanta sponsored by the Southern Education Foundation, The Civil Rights Project, and the Harvard Project on School Desegregation on April 5. The conference brought together educational leaders, civil rights experts, community representatives, and researchers to discuss school desegregation and the status of the law across the U.S.

The study, "Deepening Segregation in American Public Schools," presents the latest evidence on segregation trends from federal enrollment statistics. It is the first examination since the Supreme Court allowed desegregation orders to end in the 1990s. The study was conducted by Gary Orfield, professor of education and social policy and director of the Harvard Project on School Desegregation at GSE, and Mark Bachmeier, David R. James, and Tamela Eitle of Indiana University. Orfield and his colleagues analyzed the racial composition of U.S. public schools from 1968 to 1994, the most recent year for which data is available.

The study's key findings are:

* An Accelerating Shift Toward Segregation

The study found that the 1991-94 period has seen the largest backward movement toward segregation for blacks since the landmark 1954 school desegregation decision, Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. This trend follows the Supreme Court decisions of the 1990s which redefined desegregation to what the authors call "a temporary and limited process that created no lasting rights and need not overcome the inequalities growing out of a segregated history."

The authors argue that this data represents the first phase of what is likely to be an accelerating trend. "These statistics for the 1994-95 school year do not reflect post-1994 decisions to end desegregation plans in a number of areas," they write. "Important cases in a number of other cities are pending in court now. These decisions are virtually certain to accelerate the trend toward increased racial and economic segregation of African-American and Latino students."

* A New Pattern of Separation

According to the study, the problem is not a repeat of old patterns of separation; instead the nation's nonwhite population is now extremely concentrated in metropolitan areas. The nation's 10 largest central city school districts educated 23 percent of the country's Latino and 18 percent of black students, while 98 percent of white students go elsewhere. In the South, where progress toward integration was most successful, the proportion of black students in desegregated majority white schools dropped from a high of 44 percent in 1988 to 39.2 percent in 1991 and 36.6 percent in 1994.

Although there has been a rapid increase in minorities moving into suburban areas, the study found a pattern of high segregation for suburban black and Latino students. Rural and small-town school systems continue to be the national leaders in desegregation for minority children.

* Increased Isolation of Latino Students

The report notes that Latino students now experience more isolation from whites and more concentration in high poverty schools than any other group of students. The large majority of Latinos live in just eight states. California and Texas are home to almost three-fifths of the nation's Latino students and the report shows that both already have a minority of white students statewide. By 1994, even Latino students in suburbs were in schools that were 64 percent nonwhite. The authors note, "if the growing community of Latino students is increasingly isolated in inferior schools . . . there could be a vicious cycle of declining opportunity."

* An "Exceptionally Strong" Link Between Race and Poverty

According to the study, "the relationship between segregation by race and segregation by poverty is exceptionally strong." High poverty schools have generally low levels of educational performance. Segregated black and Latino students are 16.3 times more likely to attend a concentrated poverty school than is a student in a segregated white school. Although there are exceptions, the report notes that high poverty schools under-perform more affluent schools and are much less likely to prepare students for success in college.

Background

The Harvard Project on School Desegregation is a student-faculty research project directed by Gary Orfield and involving students from the Graduate School of Education, the Law School, and Harvard College. This study used survey data collected from U.S. public schools for the U.S. Department of Education. It received support from the MacArthur Foundation through its grant to the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University.