School Desegregation and Educational Attainment for Blacks

Abstract

The desegregation of Southern schools following the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown decision was perhaps the most important innovation in U.S. education policy in the 20th century. This paper assesses the effects of desegregation on its intended beneficiaries, black students. In Louisiana, substantial reductions in segregation between 1965 and 1970 were accompanied by large increases in per-pupil funding. This additional funding was used to "level up" school spending in integrated schools to the level previously experienced only in the white schools. The effects of desegregation on the educational experiences of black students differed substantially depending on the black share of enrollment in the district. For historical reasons, blacks in districts with higher black enrollment shares experienced larger increases in funding, compared to their counterparts in lower black enrollment share districts. On the other hand, blacks in high black enrollment share districts saw smaller increases in exposure to whites (who were higher-income). Blacks in high black enrollment share districts experienced larger improvements in educational attainment, suggesting that the increase in funding associated with desegregation was more important than the increased exposure to whites. A simple cost-benefit calculation suggests that the additional school spending was more than offset by higher earnings due to increased educational attainment. Using a different source of variation and methodology, the results of this paper are consistent with earlier work suggesting that desegregation improved educational attainment for blacks and sheds new light on the potential mechanism behind this improvement in Louisiana: increased funding for blacks' schools.

Brown Fades: The End of Court‐Ordered School Desegregation and the Resegregation of American Public Schools

“…Importantly, we have not considered here the impact of release from court order (and the resulting increase in school segregation) on educational outcomes such as academic achievement and graduation. A growing body of evidence indicates that the desegregation that took place in the 1960s and 1970s improved black students' educational attainment, but had little or no effect on white students' attainment (Ashenfelter, Collins, and Yoon, 2005;Card and Krueger, 1992;Guryan, 2004;Johnson, 2011;Reber, 2010). Prior research finds that the desegregation plans of the 1960s and 1970s were associated with declines in the black-white dissimilarity index of around 0.20 and increases in the black-white exposure index of about 0.15 (Guryan, 2004;Johnson, 2011;Reber, 2005), and that blacks' high school dropout rates declined between 3 and 6 percent during that time (Guryan, 2004;Johnson, 2011).…”

School Desegregation and Black Teacher Employment

“…Welch 1987;Rivkin 1994; Baum-Snlow & Lutz 2011; Boustan 2012); and on how exposure to desegregated schools impacted the academic, labor market and crime related outcomes of students (e.g. Guryan 2004;Vigdor & Ludwig 2008;Reber 2010;Johnson 2011;Billings et al 2013). Overall, research on these topics indicate that segregation levels declined rapidly between 1965 and 1980 before stabilizing or moderately increasing thereafter; that desegregation led to signicant declines in white enrollments, especially in large urban districts; and that attending desegregated schools improved the outcomes of African American students.…”

The Effects of School Desegregation on Mixed-Race Births

“…This model is relevant here as school desegregation has been shown to affect socioeconomic outcomes for black students. For example, school desegregation appears to have improved educational attainment for blacks (Guryan 2004;Reber 2010;Johnson 2015) so could have increased mixed-race pairings by narrowing the status gap between blacks and whites.…”