School Segregation in Metropolitan Regions, 1970-2000: The Impacts of Policy Choices on Public Education.

It has been argued that the effects of the desegregation of public schools from the late 1960s onward were limited and short-lived, in part because of white flight from desegregating districts and in part because legal decisions in the 1990s released many districts from court orders. Data presented here for 1970-2000 show that small increases in segregation between districts were outweighed by larger declines within districts. Progress was interrupted but not reversed after 1990. Desegregation was not limited to districts and metropolitan regions where enforcement actions required it, and factors such as private schooling, district size, and inclusion of both city and suburban areas within district boundaries had stronger effects than individual court mandates.