From Separate, To Equal, To Equitable: The Reconceptualization of School Integration Policies Through the Analysis of Tipping Behavior and Segregation Dynamics

Abstract

School segregation may arise from incompatibilities in the racial preferences of members of different groups. The Schelling (1971) model predicts that intergroup asymmetries give rise to tipping behavior; should the acceptable threshold of non-White shares in a population be crossed, large outflows of White households are anticipated and the school will converge towards 100 percent minority composition. Tipping points, therefore, represent the highest minority share at which a stable equilibrium can be maintained, even if a subset of White households are willing to accept higher non-White population shares.

Tipping behavior may explain the rise of minority-segregated and White-segregated schools. The racial segregation of schools challenges the pursuit of educational equity as students attending minority-segregated schools are more likely to find themselves in classrooms that are understaffed and underresourced. Most current policy studies of racial educational equality neglect to treat segregation as a result of tipping behavior. Yet, tipping mechanisms may have important policy implications by representing the overall carrying capacity that a community has for minority populations.

Despite the importance of racial preference, it is not the only factor that drives enrollment decisions. By understanding tipping behavior, educational leaders can devise policies that encourage White parents to enroll their children in schools with increasing minority shares. Employing data collected from the Schools and Staffing Survey collected in 1990-1991, 1993-1994, and 1999-2000, this paper evaluates policies that may improve the academic quality of schools through the recruitment and retention of teachers with strong content knowledge. In addition to academic quality, this paper evaluates the availability of alternative types of schools (magnet, charter, private) and its effect on tipping behavior.

Using data collected from the Common Core of Data's Public School Universe Survey between 1990 and 2015, this paper applies regression discontinuity methods to estimate school district-level tipping points. Tipping points ranging from 3 percent to 60 percent minority shares are found in the 100 largest school districts. Within these districts, academic quality matters as a moderator of racial preferences. I ultimately find that the implementation of district-level policies that increase the quality and retention of teachers are associated with statistically-significant increases in the corresponding tipping point.